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Telly tales

15.08.08 Katherine Rushton

Adapting books for television has always been big business—but while it used to be publishers chasing TV producers, suddenly the boot is on the other foot. For production companies, the rise of digital TV has turned the bestseller lists into a short-cut to both ratings and reputation, a way of achieving "cut through"—grabbing viewers' attention in the face of proliferating choice.

ITV2 forged its reputation on the back of "Secret Diary of a Call Girl", the sizzling adaptation of Orion's Belle de Jour franchise, which also broke the channel's ratings record with peak audiences of 2.2 million viewers. The BBC credits last winter's line-up of literary classics "Lark Rise to Candleford", "Cranford" and "Sense and Sensibility" with helping to restore its public standing after a year dogged by scandals. In March, Five announced plans for a series based on Conn and Hal Iggulden's The Dangerous Book for Boys (HarperCollins). Sky—flush from its Bafta win with Terry Pratchett's "The Hogfather"—recently pledged to invest £10m in a slate of book-based dramas.

"Books are brilliant," says Manda Levin, creative director of drama production at the BBC. "They present a fully realised world which is a huge short-cut. Even if we know we want a very loose adaptation with lots of leeway for the screenwriter to reinterpret that original blueprint, it's a great focus for creative debate. [Plus] the cachet of a much-loved classic can ultimately bring in an audience."

It is not just viewer numbers that books bring. As audiences are spread across an increasing number of channels, so are advertising and television budgets, and production companies are increasingly turning to foreign broadcasters to help stump up additional cash. A well-known book can help to attract that production investment, as well as top-notch acting and writing talent.

"It's a domino effect," says Sally Haynes, controller of drama at ITV. "A big title is attractive to audiences and co-production funders. All those factors make it a really exciting project to be involved with, and make it possible to attract quite a high-profile [screen]writer. Marrying an author's voice with a stand-out screenwriter is really important."

Strong narratives
So important is the screenwriter that often the enthusiasm of one big name can trigger a drama being made. The BBC repeatedly turned down Alan Hollinghurst's 2004 Man Booker winner The Line of Beauty (Picador) until Andrew Davies—something of a hit machine with credits including "Tipping the Velvet" and "Pride and Prejudice"—took up the cause. The corporation quickly commissioned a three-part series which had adequate ratings and was a critical success.

Of course, big book adaptations do not have to be fiction, or even "fiction-feeling" as with "Secret Diary". The independent production company Darlow Smithson made its name with "Touching the Void", a Channel 4 dramatisation of Joe Simpson's account of a mountaineering disaster, published by Vintage in 1998. A recent big success was the BBC2 documentary series "The Blair Years", from the memoirs of former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell.

However, those sorts of factual deals are few and far between, says Rosemary Scoular, the United Agents representative for writer/broadcasters including Simon Schama. "A lot of autobiographies and biographies just don't work on TV, particularly if they are unauthorised, so ‘The Blair Years' was a really surprising one to sell. In general, once a revelation or new research is out there, by the time it has been published and serialised, TV hates it."

ITV's Haynes agrees. Non-fiction is "incredibly important" to the broadcaster, but production companies can often pull the stories together from the public domain without having to buy up the rights. However, she makes an exception for expertly researched non-fiction with a "really strong sense of narrative" such as Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (Bloomsbury), currently in development for ITV by Hat Trick Productions. "It ticks all the boxes because it's a costume drama, a thriller and an investigative piece," she says. "We were lucky to get hold of it before anyone else did."

Then there is the "Dangerous Book for Boys" series, which will "bottle the essence" of the book by following celebrity fathers and their sons on old-fashioned adventures. Some producers have been sniffy about the celebrity angle, but others have high expectations. "We thought it wouldn't work, but they've come up with a really good idea," says Nick Catliff, managing director at Lion Television. "The celebrities will help it get that cut through, and it will still have all the boys-whittling-sticks stuff and that Swallows and Amazons feel at the heart of the programme."

Lion has a strong track record of taking books to screen, with series such as "Rough Guides" for Channel Five, but Catliff is still wary about the risks of such migration. "The TV's got to work in its own right. If it's a lousy programme, it doesn't matter if you've sold 10,000 books or 10 million. You need a narrative and you need a recognisable face. A lot of good books are written by terribly un-telegenic people, and then you have the awkwardness of pushing them off the telly."

Yet what about the other direction—the high-stakes book market for TV tie-ins? Just because a programme rates highly on the small screen doesn't mean it will automatically work as a book. Catliff points to observational documentaries and magazine shows, which are hard to translate into books because they are "purely a TV experience", citing "The One Show", whose up-to-the-minute features and onscreen chemistry have revolutionised the BBC's difficult early evening slot with audience peaks of 5.6 million.

Another tricky area is reality shows, chiefly because of embargoes. Publishers are either forced to delay their launch until the winner is announced at the end of the series, leaving just a tiny window for sales, or they simply have to fillet the competition element out of the book. More often than not the result is unsatisfactory, such as with Ebury's MasterChef Goes Large (2005). The tie-in, timed to coincide with the show's relaunch, offered tips and recipes but had relatively little from its larger-than-life presenters Gregg Wallace and John Torode. Earlier this year the "MasterChef" final attracted more than five million viewers and a 21.3% audience share, but the book has sold just 10,239 copies through Nielsen BookScan.

Perhaps that is also indicative of a more cautious approach to TV tie-ins across the board. Before digital television arrived, publishers would snap up the rights to almost anything on screen, but tougher conditions for broadcasters and booksellers have made publishers more discerning.

"More and more we're looking for flexibility in what constitutes a TV tie-in," says Albert DePetrillo, editorial director of BBC Books. "Readers are looking for something that complements and expands the experience of television. They want something that goes that bit further." In Russia (BBC Books), presenter Jonathan Dimbleby offers "far more detail" and a more personal take on the country and its people than he does in the BBC documentary series. Similarly, Delia Smith's How to Cheat at Cooking (Ebury) gives readers the brand names of cheat ingredients she could not name on her BBC2 show. The book has life sales of 482,502 copies despite a disappointing average audience of 3.1 million.

Shifting schedules
On top of exclusive material, a successful tie-in demands commitment from the programme team. That can be tricky when it comes to timing, however. Broadcasters often try to scupper or dodge the competition by shuffling their schedules around until the very last minute, with little regard for the tie-in launch.

Michael Dover, illustrated books publisher at Orion, says: "The book is always the poor relation when it comes to decision-making about screening times. Publishers, who need to secure their slots for major titles in the bookshops and other outlets six to nine months in advance, can sometimes be left high and dry."

Anova, for example, has just been forced to bring its tie-in to "Britain from Above", fronted by Andrew Marr and produced by Lion, forward by two weeks after a late scheduling change by the BBC. But although m.d. Polly Powell identifies unrealistic schedules as a deal-breaker, she says there is a balancing act to be played. "On the one hand, a publisher must produce a TV tie-in book as late as possible to use the best possible material and to dovetail publication with the programmes, but not have books released before the programmes show. In some cases you may have two weeks to suddenly get books printed and out to the shops."

Fortunately, a commitment to quality has not been quite so difficult to find—especially after the 2003 Communications Act which handed the intellectual property rights in a programme from the broadcaster to the producer. Since then, production companies have stood as a direct beneficiary of strong tie-in sales.

As a result, producers are working harder and spending more on pulling materials together as they go along. "Ten years ago when we did a book, frankly we wouldn't have much input into it, but [the Act has] changed everything," Catliff confesses. "For ‘Britain from Above' we spent £30,000-odd on having the best possible stills photography specifically for the book. It's important to us because it makes a lot of money, and that's crucial in today's climate."
But it's not just about the income, he adds. A book extends the life of a project beyond its designated slot and confers a sense of status—whether that is defining a channel with an iconic title, or helping to woo talent with the promise of a glossy tome.

"You can't underestimate how good it makes everyone feel to see a pile of books in the production office," Catliff says. "A book just feels more solid."


 

Flagship Feature Katherine Rushton Television tie ins

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