Channel 4, the home of groundbreaking eighties music show The Tube, has announced four new primetime music shows and also says it plans to make more music biopics after the wild success of Amy, the recent documentary about Amy Winehouse.
Broadcast magazine reports that the new shows are Blink, a 30-minute music quiz show; Best Before, a show focussed on new releases; World’s Greatest Songwriters, a 30-minute show that reveals the stories behind the greatest hits; and The 80s: Ten Years We Love To Hate, a follow-up to the recently-screened Turn Up . . . The Nineties.
News of new show Blink follows the BBC's axing of their long-running music quiz Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
Channel 4 says it is also looking to follow-up the success of the Film 4-funded Amy documentary with an increased biopic output.
“We’ve got some really good rock docs that are working in primetime and now we’re increasingly looking for more access to music icons,” Jonny Rothery, Channel 4’s music commissioner, told Broadcast.
“Not just talking heads, we’re speaking to two or three really big music icons about spending proper time with them, doing biopic by stealth, with great archive and performance. Sometimes you don’t always get the most out of them by sitting them down with a director.
"And we wouldn’t do it with music stars that are quite saturated: Katy Perry might not be right, but being theoretical, Noel Gallagher or Elton John might be.”
