The entrance of the American streamers into the factual drama space has muddied the waters in terms of defining a show’s success, according to Jeff Pope, who made his first streamer show last year.
Reviews are now even more crucial than they used to be while ratings have dipped in importance in a world of cannibalized viewing, Pope told a Broadcasting Press Guild lunch this afternoon in London.
Pope, an Oscar nominee for Philomena, who has made tonnes of factual drama down the decades, was speaking as he prepares to launch Believe Me, an ITV drama about John Worboys, dubbed the “Black Cab Rapist” by the tabloid press. Pope’s previous show, Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, was made for Disney+, his first for a streamer. To this day, Pope said he isn’t sure how well that one rated, which is in stark contrast to the pre-streaming era when creators and executives waited with bated breath for overnight ratings to emerge the morning after a show landed.
“I struggle to tell you what the Disney numbers were [for Suspect],” he said. “[Making shows] is not just about tummy tickling but you want to feel [a show] mattered. The most visceral way of feeling that in the past has been the next morning’s ratings. For Disney, I don’t know how it’s measured.”
Disney+ and other streamers’ UK ratings are technically published by BARB, the official TV ratings agency, but these figures are perhaps not paid attention to in the same way as the overnights from yesteryear.
Pope’s producing partner Saurabh Kakkar said “reviews matter more now because in the old days they would have gone out and people wouldn’t be able to [go back and watch a show], but now people use reviews to actually go to [watch] stuff.”
Pope concurred with Kakkar’s notion, adding: “That’s a very very good point.”
Pope said he “hopes” to work with the streamers more in the future and praised their push into factual drama with shows like Netflix’s Adolescence and Toxic Town. “They remind terrestrial channels that these kind of pieces are really popular and people want them,” he said.
On the flipside, the “minus” is that streamers offer more money to crew than local broadcasters, which “economically makes life difficult for traditional public service drama,” Pope said.
Making the “UK-centric” Believe Me, which comes from Pope’s ITV Studios-backed Etta Pictures, was “very difficult financially,” Pope said.
Pope “never interested in Worboys’ motivations”
Daniel Mays as John Worboys. Image: ITV
The show, which launches May 10, stars Daniel Mays as the serial rapist who police believe may have had more than 100 victims. Three of his victims are played by Aimée-Ffion Edwards (Peaky Blinders), Aasiya Shah (Raised by Wolves) and Industry breakout Miriam Petche. The show focuses on how the Metropolitan Police failed to thoroughly investigate two women’s allegations, which left Worboys free to commit assaults undetected for many years. Unbelievably, eight years after he was convicted for his crimes, his victims were made to fight again to keep him behind bars.
“I never thought this was a story about Worboys or was really interested in Worboys’ motivations,” said Pope.
Instead, he said the focus is about shining a light on the “utterly horrific” statistic that for every 100 rapes and sexual assaults reported to the police, only three receive charges. “That is what the story is about, it’s about them not being believed,” Pope said. “It starts because of what Worboys did to them, but it’s not about Worboys.”
Pope said his team hasn’t even told Worboys the show is happening yet. It will only do so in order to notify his prison that the drama is taking place and may “provoke a reaction among inmates.”
Notably, one of Worboys’ victims was Carrie Johnson, the wife of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was drugged by him in 2007, testified at his trial and waived her anonymity.
Several years back, she was the first victim Pope contacted. “What I thought was fascinating about Carrie was this idea of, ‘Be careful what you do to the girl because the woman will come back to haunt you’,” said Pope. “She was director of communications at Conservative Party HQ, heard that Worboys was going to be released on parole and swung into action.”
“I don’t have an anti-police agenda”
Aimee-Ffion Edwards in ‘Believe Me’. Image: ITV
Despite her bravery, Pope said there should have been more “aftercare” for Johnson, who as a 19-year-old was suddenly thrust into the press spotlight due to Worboys’ terrible actions.
Pope’s drama is hugely critical of the police reaction to Worboys’ crimes and is one of several recent projects of this ilk that he has created recently including Suspect, along with his upcoming BBC drama about Sarah Everard, who was killed by a serving policeman in London in 2021.
Today, Pope denied that he has an “anti-police agenda” but said London’s Metropolitan Police is “not yet fit for the role in 2026.”
“What I’m looking for is stories that reach beyond the totality of the events,” he added. “What’s bigger than that? Why is this story important and why should it occupy a chunk of ITV’s annual budget? So I’m not anti-police at all but the last two or three things I’ve done, the police have not emerged well from that process.”
