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Killing Time or killing the element of risk?

FremantleMedia's Jason Stephens finally opens up on why Seven didn't pursue Killing Time, allowing TV1 to snaffle it.

FremantleMedia Australia’s Jason Stephens has spoken again about the Killing Time miniseries, which is coming to TV1.

Stephens tells Encore Magazine that the freedom of Pay TV is the way of the future.

In developing the series based on the life of disgraced lawyer Andrew Fraser (pictured), he also spoke about why Seven decided not to proceed with it. Rather tellingly, he says it wasn’t a good fit.

“We couldn’t argue that. They had issues with the Andrew Fraser character not being the hero type character that we could never make him into. They felt that it wasn’t going to work for their network given their audience and how well they know it,” said Stephens.

So is it a case of Seven not prepared to take a risk with a flawed character? Or a case of execs knowing their own audience like the back of their hand. There is every possibility they still loved the project but were convinced it wouldn’t work with a broad audience.

Stephens says the team found more creative freedom with TV1, which allowed them to make “a very different program” than it would have been at a commercial network.

David Wenham play the lead role of Fraser.

Source: Encore

3 Responses

  1. After doing some ‘extras’ work on this show, trust me it’s going to be great viewing. I also believe it’s going to go to Channel 10 after TV1 so lets hope it comes to our screens soon now that Dupas has been found guilty yet again and locked away forever.

  2. Oh please….”creative freedom” in tv is a time-honoured joke.
    Now TV1 is the Australian HBO?

    This reads to me as FremantleMedia concocts Underbelly Lite, pitches to Seven who front some cash, production happens but FremantleMedia deliver something like Small Claims Court which (obviously) doesn’t pass network muster so instead of paying the outstanding Seven contractually opts out and FremantleMedia has to sell to anyone willing (ie:TV1) to recoup loses.

    Good effort at spin though Jase 😉

  3. Quote: “They had issues with the Andrew Fraser character not being the hero type character that we could never make him into.”

    Right… And exactly how many ‘heroes’ were in the top-rating Underbelly series? Maybe there isn’t a big enough ‘titty factor’ in Fraser’s story to make it popular.

    I’ve read Fraser’s book, and if you ask me he’s darned heroic for sharing a cell with, ‘befriending’, and testifying against Peter Dupas. Fraser made mistakes, admitted them and paid for them, and he’s kept his nose clean (literally) since.

    It’s going to make a great story, shame it’ll be buried on pay TV where no-one’s going to see it.

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