BBC Docs Boss Says She Would Never Have Greenlit ‘Harry & Meghan’: “As A Public Broadcaster We Cannot Relinquish Editorial Control”

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix’s Harry & Meghan would never have found a home at the BBC, the woman tasked with overseeing the corporation’s documentary programing has said.

According to Clare Sillery, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s approach to the Netflix smash series would be unacceptable for a public broadcaster that “cannot relinquish editorial control.” Speaking on the eve of Sheffield Doc Fest, Sillery said doc commissioning is a “question of trust and what audiences expect from us,” while she acknowledged that “in the online world people can have complete control of their own narratives.” “But the question for the viewer is what you are paying your license fee for,” she said. “[The viewer] expects us to maintain the editorial standards that we have.” Much has been made of the editorial control exerted by the subjects in last year’s doc series, which was co-produced by the ex-royal duo’s Archewell Productions via a multi-million dollar Netflix deal.

Speaking to Deadline in April, Ian Rumsey, who oversaw the separate Prince Harry ITV interview, said Harry & Meghan had been “slightly overshadowed” by the debates thrown up around the royal couple’s involvement with the project, while a group of doc-makers at the Berlinale TV Series described Harry & Meghan as “almost a different genre.” And it isn’t only Harry & Meghan that opted for the approach.

Pamela Anderson’s Netflix feature Pamela: A Love Story, for example, counts the model’s son Brandon Thomas Lee as producer. As she unveiled a packed Sheffield Doc Fest slate, Sillery said public broadcasters can set themselves apart from the streamers through docs that focus on telling stories in the present tense. “We’ve got very comfortable in the past tense and this has partly