Category: Association News

New Members to join ATCP include DARE Pictures, Good TV, and Turquoise TV

London,  Wednesday 27^th March 2024

As the ATCP  (Association of True Crime Producers) continues to gather momentum, the non-profit syndicate (created to establish best practice guidelines for the TV crime genre), is pleased to announce a new broadcaster led webinar Compliance: A Broadcasters View, and welcomes further new members.

The Webinar which takes place on the 16^th of April, is hosted by Ian Rumsey, ITN’s Managing Director of Content who will be chatting to guest speakers Sara Winter, Senior Content Legal Advisor, Channel 5, Sebrina Zeki, Director of Compliance, A+E Networks EMEA, Nicky Jinks, Content Compliance Executive, Sky, and Paul Herbert, Senior Legal Counsel, Sky.

Ian Rumsey said: “It’s vital for the industry to uphold legal and ethical standards, to ensure we have the trust of audiences and, most importantly, contributors. I’m really looking forward to our next webinar to hear more from the broadcaster perspective.”

Compliance: A Broadcaster’s View will look at how broadcasters’ approach compliance, and will delve into the key elements that need to be covered on each true crime production. The creation of this webinar follows on from a host of broadcasters expressing their support for the ethical approach of the Association of True Crime Producers.

Sebrina Zeki, Director of Compliance, A+E Networks EMEA, said: “A+E Networks EMEA is delighted to work with the ATCP, supporting them in our shared mission to prioritise best practices when producing high-quality True Crime programming. This is a niche and sometimes challenging area, so it is refreshing to share ideas on improving our duty of care and ethical standards in our filmmaking. This group is truly inspirational for spearheading the way to a more conscientious way of storytelling, which brings a newfound respect to this rapidly growing genre.”

In other news, the ATCP is also delighted to welcome DARE Pictures, Good TV, and Turquoise TV as new members, as the syndicate continues to grow.

The ATCP launched July 2023, and is committed to the continued development of the highest professional standards in true crime production, with members signing up to a set of clear guidelines, which put victims and their families at the centre of the production process and aims to enhance current best practice in duty of care.  Members have committed to conforming to the highest ethical standards and supporting the continuing integrity and success of true crime production.  

Members to date include DARE Pictures, Good TV, Turquoise TV, Back2Back Productions, Content Kings, Flicker Productions, North One, Zig Zag Productions, Avalon, First Look TV, ITN Productions, Monster Films, Peninsula Television, Phoenix Television, Rare TV, Revelation Films, Title Role, and Woodcut Media.

Membership is open to TV and film production companies, digital or podcast content producers, or individuals directly engaged in the production of true crime content for domestic (UK & Ireland) or international consumption.  

For enquiries regarding ATCP please go to website www.atcp.tv 

Source: https://worldscreen.com/tvreal/atcp-keeping-true-crime-in-top-form/

A band of indie true-crime specialists from the U.K. and Ireland have come together to form the Association of True Crime Producers (ATCP), with a mission to establish and enforce best practice guidelines for the genre. The founding partners—Avalon, FirstLookTV, ITN Productions, Monster Films, Peninsula Television, Phoenix Television, Rare TV, Revelation Films, Title Role and Woodcut Media—are committed to protecting parties associated with true-crime programming, including the families of those at the center of the stories and the teams working on the productions.

The ATCP formed organically over several months, according to Kate Beal, founder and CEO of Woodcut Media and chair of the recently launched ATCP. “Individual producers were discussing with each other different scenarios that were occurring on productions, and with the increasing popularity of the genre, it became clear that we needed to come together to take positive action,” she explains. “Through a series of meetings, it was decided to create an association that would promote high ethical standards within the true-crime genre and give producers a safe space to share best practices with each other. The first ten founding indies worked hard to create the guidelines and get the association moving. Now, we’re heading into the next stage of development with new producers joining every week. It’s an exciting time for the ATCP, as the future isn’t simply about a set of guidelines. It’s about ongoing education and discourse within the field of true-crime program-making.”

As mostly U.K. indies, the group will be adhering to the Ofcom codes of conduct, “and this is the fundamental basis of our program-making,” Beal says. “However, our guidelines go further in terms of best practice and duty of care. We have written 13 simple principles, which cover all aspects of a project—from preproduction to once it’s been on air. A lot of it is common sense, and much of it has been developed by the founding producers over the years. The guidelines focus on everyone connected to the featured crime. This could include the family of the victims, the family of the perpetrator, the investigators and other members of the public involved with the case. The guidelines also discuss the duty of care toward production teams, which, as we know, is crucial when dealing with distressing content. We ask members to adhere where practicably possible to the guidelines and work with broadcasters to ensure the ethical principles are maintained.”

The importance of a group with an aim such as this is increasingly important to have in place at this current juncture of the genre’s popularity, notes Beal. “Over the past 15 years, the true-crime genre has been maturing, and along with it, the producers have developed individual best practices. In recent times, there has been a real boom in the genre. It’s enabled us to tell stories in alternative shapes and forms—from feature docs to formatted shows to ongoing adjudicated series. All networks and platforms are, in their own way, featuring true-crime content. As new-to-the-genre indies start producing these shows, it’s vital that we maintain a high level of duty of care within each project, in particular with the families of the victims and the care of the production teams. Education around this area in terms of approach and sensitivity is more important than ever with the high number of true-crime hours currently being commissioned.”

Beal says there are a number of reasons why the true-crime genre is in a particularly popular period. Paramount to them all, though, is that “these stories matter.” She adds: “For thousands of years, we’ve told each other stories of good and evil. This is simply an extension of that. In today’s context, the viewer is reassured to see that although bad things do happen in the world, the police are there, doing their job, and more often than not in the case of murder, the perpetrator is punished. In one sense, seeing that justice has been served gives the viewer a sense of well-being.”

The big-picture role of the ATCP is to continue to promote high ethical standards within true-crime program-making. “This will ensure that the genre continues to be respected by those taking part and by the viewers,” says Beal. “The contributors trust us to tell their stories, and we need to continue to earn that trust. The viewers need to know that we are representing these stories in the most truthful, sensitive and ethical way possible.”