Meeting with CAT LEWIS of NINE LIVES MEDIA TV Friday 27 Sept 2024
The headlines show how the world is changing: “How YouTube beat Netflix to become the world’s biggest TV Channel,” said the Telegraph (12 June 2024); “BBC to cut 500 more jobs as revenue falls 6%” (Press Gazette 23 July 2024); “TV Industry in Turmoil” (Guardian, 12 May 2024); “ITV cuts jobs amid advertising slump – broadcaster faces biggest slump in advertising since financial crisis” (Telegraph, 17 Mar 2024). Given all this, how can a small independent TV producer make serious programmes, win awards, and survive? Or even thrive, in this highly competitive environment?
Cat Lewis started her full-time broadcasting career in the late 1980s as a BBC Trainee with her first placement the BBC Look North West newsroom, where she quickly found herself at the heart of the controversy over serious food poisoning outbreaks linked to eggs. Having filmed at the Public Health Laboratory Service, which strongly supported the Health Minister’s concern, she took the footage back to the studio, only to be overruled by her boss who was more alarmed by the potential effects on the Lancashire egg farmers. The rest is history, you might say: “I was a cub reporter, and there was nothing I could do,” Cat told us, and that’s entirely understandable.
There was a parallel with Mike Lewis, the man she was to marry, who was working for World In Action and Tonight with Trevor McDonald, making almost 100 current affairs programmes every year (believe me, that’s a lot). His team broke the BSE story.
In fact Cat had started some years before as one of the country’s youngest broadcasters aged 16, where she presented on Tyne Tees TV and BBC Radio Tees children’s programmes while still at school and sixth form. She went on work experience for six weeks and stayed three years. Dream job, but wanting to become a producer, she got a degree from Bristol University that including TV production. After university she worked on a range of BBC programmes including Newsnight, then a Must Watch for anyone interested in the real world.
After her first baby, the BBC refused to allow her to work parttime, so she left and began one of TV’s first-ever job shares at Granada. Soon she was making a wide range of factual programmes for Granada in Manchester, now ITV Productions, rising to Series Producer – that’s the suit you have to convince if you come up with a new idea for a TV series, or be interviewed by if you’re a potential celeb on a forthcoming big show. Cat made the first house renovation programme, where an old property in Heaton Moor was to be rescued; filming the pigeons in the loft was a problem as the birds would fly off at the first human tread, till they hit on using trained pigeons. There’s always a way..
Eleven years on, however, it’s the year 2001. Cat was made redundant by Granada so moved to become Executive Producer of an independent production operation, Unique Factuals, still Manchester-based, churning out a huge number of fact-based series and one-off documentaries for a wide range of broadcasters (Noel Edmonds was the man behind the parent company). Her reputation was by now well established and many programmes won awards; she created the first two formats for Martin Lewis of moneyexpert.com. Their 2006 documentary series Extreme Twins for Channel 5 became an international hit, opening up new lines of revenue, and giving confidence for the future.
Then in 2007, having been made redundant for a second time, she set up her own company, Nine Lives Media, which makes and sells around the world. Nine Lives won a BAFTA for Best Factual Children’s Programme in 2012 and 2015, an International Emmy in 2016, 11 Royal Television Society awards and other accolades. Their Stranger in my Family, the emotional story of a man who discovered through a DNA test that he is mixed race, was Broadcast Award-nominated earlier this year; she showed us clips which had us watching intently (it’s on BBC iPlayer). These programmes regularly attract very high ratings and critical acclaim. Nine Lives sells direct to USA broadcasters – no longer is it dependent on British outlets! – but is still one of the biggest independent suppliers to the BBC’s flagship series Panorama.
I’ve done enough TV to know that this is a breathtaking CV, all the more remarkable as in the early years, women giving the orders were not that visible in a rather misogynist world – an attractive young woman was far likelier to be a guest on a TV programme than behind the camera. And despite successive governments ordering the BBC to use more independent producers, the deal for them isn’t always on a level playing field, so Cat is also known in the industry as a doughty campaigner, pushing for more work to come outside London and helping ensure that the fees to producing companies are not siphoned off by the broadcasters – the IP stays with the creator (like books and music).
Two main threads continue in her work: an abiding interest in health issues, so you will find Nine Lives working with Professor Tim Spector on Ultra Processed Foods and aspartame, the artificial sweetener; and a passion for telling a human story, with the utmost sympathy for the ordinary human beings who get caught up in life-changing events. “Television is transformative – if you can show that transformation to viewers, it’s magic,” she said.
But what about those headlines? In some ways it’s worse. “A large part of the BBC licence fee is going to huge pensions for retirees,” she pointed out. That pushes the Beeb to have far fewer employees, and use more independent producers. But it means less cash for BBC News, and for local radio which in many areas is in danger of disappearing – BBC Radio Manchester doesn’t seem to know where the High Peak is. “People don’t watch the news any more, it’s too depressing,” she told us. Instead, YouTube is where the money is, and NineLives now has its own YouTube channel called A True Story, where you can watch over 200 programmes the company has made in the past and owns. Google splits the advertising revenue with those who run channels, which generates a steady and reliable income for the business.
We did have fun watching the clips she showed us. Cat has shrewdly tackled the fastest growing media platform, TikTok, with a remarkable new series TikTok – Murder Gone Viral using the footage that crazy people put on TikTok as they plan to kill, or even as they do it. It’s now into Series 2 and could run and run (watch on ITVX).
And among the mayhem and the murder nestles Songs of Praise, for Cat is a committed Christian. It was one of the late Queen’s favourite programmes, but some time ago Cat was startled to get a phone call from the Palace: “A very senior royal wants to come on your show. Why aren’t you answering the emails about this?” And so Queen Elizabeth was the prinicipal guest in the episode of 14th January 2018, hosted by Katharine Jenkins.
In what used to be derelict dockside, media businesses in Salford and Manchester are now significant employers – around 3,200 work at BBC MediaCity including BBC Sports and Radio 5. With ITV and Corrie, editing suites and independents plus the transformed Salford University, it’s a huge contribution to our local economy. We had both Peel (the developers) and ITV (2018) talk to Business Club when we first started; you can read the blogs on our website.
As Nine Lives shows, the sky’s the limit. A fascinating look at a remarkable business.