New Writing North and Channel 4 announce renewed partnership

We are delighted to announce that Channel 4 are committed to a new three-year partnership with New Writing North to find and support talented TV writers from the North.

The UK has created some of the most influential and loved cinema and television in the world. In 2022 inward investment was £3.62billion for high-end TV. However, BAFTA’s Invisible Barriers guide reports only 9% of people who work in the industry would declare themselves as coming from a working-class background.

This Channel 4/New Writing North partnership will help create pathways for talented writers based in the North and from a wide range of backgrounds to reach global screens. This comes at a time of significant expansion for the screen industry in the region with an 89% increase in film and TV production in the North East over the last two years.

We have been working with Channel 4 since 2015 on the Channel 4 Writing for Television Awards. Over the last ten years many writers who have received this support have gone on to great things including Sharma Angel-Walfall (2015 recipient) who earlier this week was announced as a writer on the next series of Doctor Who.

The partnership will deliver:

Channel 4 Writing for Television Awards. Channel 4 will support four emerging writers, selected via open call, to go through a talent development programme. This comprises bespoke writer development, mentoring, financial support and invaluable professional experience working with a production company.

Slate and Screen Play Weekends. Channel 4 will support eight writers, who have not worked on screenplays before, to attend two weekend events. Over the course of a weekend the writers can explore their ideas for TV with an experienced showrunner (top-level executive producer of a television series). Writers will be drawn from open calls, Northern Writers Awards and existing New Writing North networks.

Screen Development Slate. New Writing North will lead and manage a ‘development slate’ (a group of projects not made yet). Channel 4 will support five writers with screenwriting experience to be part of this slate which will get their project/s ready for industry.

Northern Talent Network Open Events. Channel 4 will support three open-access community events across the North each year. These events are for emerging writers and those completely new to screenwriting. The events will feature role-model writers, producers and others involved in creating and making TV.

Northern Talent Network Script Hubs. These are peer-group spaces which provide a safe, nurturing and supportive environment for a group of up to 10 new writers. Channel 4 will support two new script hubs for writers facing intersectional challenges (those that face simultaneous prejudices based on their race, gender, sexuality or class). One in person in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, and one online for Global Majority writers.