AIDC 2025: Access is everything

ABC factual commissioners have emphasised the importance of access to subjects in true crime documentary pitches.

“Access is currency,” Kalita Corrigan, Factual Commissioner, said at the Australian International Documentary Conference.

“We’ve got a development slate of true crime which we can’t announce yet, but access is what separates them apart.

“It’s great if you want to tell a story, but if you don’t have the person, somebody on screen, or a series of people on screen to tell that story, how are you going to convey that? There are some ways you can creatively solve that. But I just think access is absolutely everything, and exclusive access is everything really, in true crime. I think.”

ABC Commissioning Editor Stephen Oliver said the main one reason he might knock back a true crime pitch is because it lacks the real reason that it should be on the ABC.

“Like, why should we do this? What is the reason for opening this story up and telling it on a public broadcaster? We have the great privilege and responsibility of spending taxpayers money, that has to be spent wisely. Why would we tell this story? We don’t just tell it for salacious reasons,” he said.

“If you don’t have access that’s how you do cheaper, kind of cable, true crimes, because you just use what’s available. But you don’t actually have the inside story. Access actually means that you’re getting to the heart of the story. You’re actually hearing from the people who are involved. So that’s what ABC true crime is all about. It’s embedded. It’s deep. It’s really getting to the heart of story. So it almost inevitably has to have some sense of really unique and special access.”