London Screenings: ITV Studios’ Ruth Berry on Andrew Lincoln’s ‘Cold Water,’ David Tennant’s ‘The Hack’ and How Scale and Must Haves Matter Ever More
ITV Studios weighs into the 2025 London TV Screenings with its biggest slate in the last couple of years, certainly on the format side, and one of the weightiest lineups of any company presenting in London this week.
Its Feb. 26 showcase at the Odeon Leicester Square, open exclusively to buyers, will launch 12 brand new dramas, 26 returning seasons, 27 non-scripted titles and 10 new formats featuring must-check-out shows from many of the U.K.’s top production companies such as Sister Pictures (“Chernobyl,” “Eric”), Quay Street Productions (“Fool Me Once,” “Nolly”), Mammoth Screen (“Poldark,” “Murder is Easy”), Lifted Entertainment (“Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway”) and Plimsoll Productions (“A Year on Planet Earth,” “A Real Bug’s Life”).
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“Sister Pictures is not one of the ITV Studios family but the others are. That’s a real testament to the journey we’ve been on in the last few years of really trying to work with the best talent,” said Ruth Berry, ITV Studios’ head of global distribution.
It will show at the London Screenings. One title leading the charge for ITV Studios is “Cold Water,” where “The Walking Dead’s” Andrew Lincoln makes his British TV comeback after 15 years in the latest series from multi-award winning Sister Pictures, penned by playwright David Ireland who has described it as a “dark, funny, twisted thriller.”
Another scripted highlight: “The Hack,” written by Jack Thorne, a doyen of British screenwriters. The real life drama stars David Tennant and Robert Carlyle playing respectively journalist Nick Davies and Met Police Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Cook investigating over 2002-12 News of the World phone hacking and the unsolved murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan. The two cases converge.
ITV Studios will also introduce “The Guest,” from Nicola Schindler’s Quay Street Productions and crime drama “Code of Silence,” from Mammoth Screen.
Billed as “heartfelt, dramatic and inspiring,” “Extreme Planet Earth” looks like ITV’s biggest non-fiction play, a six-part global event docu-series shot over three years revealing how nature, here heroic animals, are enduring, adapting and prevailing against new extreme weather. Plimsoll Productions produces for ITV and Germany’s ARD.
In formats, ITV Studios’ offer is headed by the fun, foreseeably humor-drenched “Celebrity Sabotage” from Lifted Ent., a hidden camera reality gameshow where contestants, believing they are competing in a reality gameshow, are secretly sabotaged by celebrities.
Among market trends for Berry:
Scale and Breadth of Offer Matters
This, however, is just a small part of ITV’s offer. Scale matters, Berry argued to Variety in the run-up to its macro showcase.
“You need a sense of scale because the market will want different things.Whereas five years ago, drama was largely focused on 55-plus females, there is now an increasing amount of conversation which is 55-and-under, regarding more multigenerational, younger skewing of male and female skewed content. That’s a shift,” Berry noted.
“The Voice” is still our biggest format in the world because it can play to anyone and everyone. “Love Island” plays very, very strongly to a younger demographic, but does capture more older people.
“Even “Cold Water” and “The Hack” are still going to have slightly older audiences but they’re targeted at a much broader audience, broadening that funnel out more into a wider appeal for everybody,” Berry added.
Market Realism
ITV Studios’ slate reflects the clear market sensitivity and realism of this year’s London TV Screening.
The market unspools when crime thrillers accounted for 25% of global scripted orders in 2024 and 40% of Global 6 streamer commissions, second half 2024, according to Ampere Analysis.
Many of its top scripted plays – “Cold Water,” “The Hack,” “The Guest,” “Code of Silence” can be billed as crime thrillers. But “The Hack” is real life crime, “Cold Water” and “The Guest” character driven psychological thrillers, and “Code of Silence” distinguished by its protagonist’s special power.
“I think the word ‘crime drama’ or ‘thriller’ is a really wide catch all. What you end up with here is really different dramas which will grip different audiences in different ways,” Berry noted.
And Stars Matter Too
There’s one through-line in many ITV Studios shows, however: Their star presence. That’s obvious in the dramas. Half of ITV Studios top formats weave in a celebrity presence.
“Our clients definitely ask for that star power recognition. Strong talent that can stand up it’s really important on formats’ factual programming. You really need to have something that helps you cut through and elevate a show in the schedule. This refers to all programming genres, especially drama,” said Berry.
Non-Scripted Must-Haves
In non-scripted, ITV Studios will unveil two of the London Screenings’ biggest natural history must-haves, which stand out in their production ambition and enthralling concepts and relevance to viewers: “Extreme Planet Earth” and “Secret Garden.”
“Extreme Planet Earth” records how wildlife is pushing back against climate change. That includes a case of Darwinian survival not over millions of years but one generation, Berry noted.
“We’re finding new evolutionary traits in animals. In ‘Extreme Planet Earth,’ there’s a lizard in the Caribbean that within one generation has learnt to grow longer fingers to grip onto the vegetation when the wind blows. There’s Charles Darwin right there in that natural history show,” Berry said.
“One of the things I love about my job is that we’re bringing new stories to the world, world firsts. We’re educating. We are entertaining. But having a voice in natural history or other issues makes you realise why what we do is so important. “Mr. Bates vs the Post Office” was the perfect example of that last year, “The Hack” this.
Below we drill down on on ITV Studios’ plans for the London TV Screenings.
TOP DRAMA PLAYS
“Cold Water”
The latest from Sister Pictures, in which Andrew Lincoln (“Love Actually,” Rock Grimes in “The Walking Dead”) plays John, repressed and raging at his effete stay-at-home life, who moves his family to apparent rural idyll Coldwater. There he is befriended by Tommy, a seeming pillar of the community. When John’s rage explodes, Tommy comes to his help, placing John in his debt, while John is blissfully unaware that Tommy is harbouring horrifying secrets. This could be a truly gripping psychological thriller turning on misconceptions about masculinity and a friendship from hell.
“The Hack”
From Jack Thorne, creator of the hugely influential “Skins” and co-writer with Shane Meadows of the “This is England” series and “The Virtues,” a double-backed real life crime investigation starring David Tennant, Robert Carlyle and Toby Jones. ITV Studios and Stan Australia co-produce, in association with Anonymous Content’s London-based AC Chapter One and One Shoe Films. Another of the Screenings’ potential Hot Picks. “Jack Thorne is a superb writer. There’s a lot of his style coming through in this,” said Berry.
“The Guest”
Eve Myles (“Keeping Faith”) and Gabrielle Crevy (“In My Skin”) star in “The Guest,” from Quay Street, created by Matthew Barry, also behind Quay Street’s Russell Davies-produced “Men Up”for the BBC. Bound for BBC iPlayer and BBC One, in it Fran, a successful business owner, mentors her cleaner Ria about taking control her life, prompts a truly incriminating event, and a manipulative game of cat and mouse which asks: Who is playing who? “It’s a crime thriller and there are lots of twists and turns around how that happens and the relationship between these two women,” Berry commented.
“Code of Silence”
Deaf catering worker Alison is called to lip read conversations between a group of dangerous criminals, only to fall for one of the suspects. “EastEnders’” Rose Ayling-Ellis leads the cast. Mammoth Screen produces for ITV an BritBox North America.
NON-SCRIPTED
“Extreme Planet Earth,”
From Plimsoll Productions, three years in the making, a high-end natural history survival thriller, unveiling wildlife’s “courage, resilience and determination” facing up to extreme weather, whether wombats in Australia with fires raging around them to Caribbean flamingos in Mexico reacting to the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record. “There has never been a more pressing and relevant natural history series,” says ITV. “There’s obviously a lot of discussions with partners around the world which are avidly following it and seeing what developments come out of the production,” Berry noted.
“Ages of Ice”
Scientists, modern day explorers, penetrate the planet’s merciless polar regions to understand how changes in ice affect every place and creature on the planet. A three-part miniseries from Northern Pictures, a five-time Primetime Emmy winner for “Love on the Spectrum U.S.,” produced for Australia’s ABC and U.S. PBS.
“Secret Garden”
Another Plimsoll Productions standout, and building on the huge success of “Wild Isles,” 2023’s highest rating U.K. factual series. “Secret Garden” reveals the wildlife, both animals and plants, which call flowerbeds, vegetable patches, lawns and ponds its home, from Scotland’s wilds to big cities. It also explores how viewers help local wildlife. Bound for the BBC and French-German pubcaster Arte, underscoring its international reach.
“Ashley Cain: Into the Danger Zone”
Former soccer player Ashley Cain embeds himself in some dangerous places for young men from drug gangs in Marseille to poachers in South Africa, exploring their extreme male cultures. “But after walking in their shoes, can he understand their path?” ITV Studios asks. Produced for True North for the BBC.
FORMATS
“Celebrity Sabotage”
Produced by Lifted Ent, also behind “Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway,” “Hell’s Kitchen” and “The Voice U.K.,” a celebrities prank show where stars dupe the public which believes it’s in a reality gameshow. The more the celebrities succeed in their sabotage of the contestants’ missions, the bigger the contestants’ prize money. “‘Celebrity Sabotage’ has a lot of fun, and everyone needs a fair amount of fun in their schedule,” enthused Berry.
“Twin Love”
A social experiment reality-dating competition where 10 sets of identical twins are separated with no communication in different houses with identical casts to see if both twins go for the same twin set and if they prioritize their love life over their sibling bonds. Based on a format created by ITV Studios Netherlands, produced by ITV America’s ITV Entertainment for Amazon Prime Video, where it premiered in November 2023.
Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters
“Compelling natural history meets adrenaline-fuelled entertainment,” says ITV Studios, as ocean-phobic celebrities travel to the Bahamas, the world’s shark capital, to come face-to-face with terrifying underwater predators, climaxing with massive six-metre-long apex predator tiger sharks. Another high-end Plimsoll production.
“Bullseye”
A classic darts-themed game show format whose recent U.K. reboot attracted a robust 7 million viewers. Three pairs of contestants – each including a keen darts player (the ‘thrower’) and their partner (the ‘knower’) – compete, throwing darts at different game boards and answering questions. For Berry, “There’s a real resurgence of darts. It’s really a good time to be taking that out to market and there’s lots of international interest.”
“Eve of Destruction”
Created by ITV Studios Australia for the country’s ABC, an unconventional celebrity chat show which turns on a single question: Your house is about to be destroyed by a wrecking ball or a rogue UFO or a meteor – what two things would you save?
“Date My Nan”
Hair and makeup artists give a Nan a transformational glow-up then set them off on a blind date. “At the heart of it, it is actually about trying to help solve loneliness and having the older generation go out, having companions and getting the confidence in yourself to be sociable,” said Berry.
“Dating Pool”
A fast-paced dating show – just 15 minutes per episode – in which hopeful singletons take a ride in a cab with three eligible suitors looking for love, the cab driven by a celebrity who keeps there conversation flowing. Produced by Renaissance Studios for Channel 4. “Another really interesting concept, and particularly for younger skewing audiences, which a lot of our clients are looking for,” Berry commented.
“Greenhouse,”
“Eight young eco-offenders are challenged to spend a week at an off-grid retreat in this eye-opening format blending reality, competition and the future of the planet,” ITS Studios says. A new format for Welsh broadcaster S4C produced by Cardiff-based Little Bird Films.
“Through the Keyhole”
A host shows viewers around a celebrity’s home, sharing random and potentially misleading clues, while in a studio three celebrity panellists must guess who lives there.
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