UK Broadcaster C4 Scores Two Sharon Horgan Comedies As It Hands Genre $13M Budget Boost

UK Broadcaster C4 Scores Two Sharon Horgan Comedies As It Hands Genre $13M Budget Boost

Rob Latour/REX/Shutterstock British broadcaster Channel 4 is doubling down on comedy af..

Rob Latour/REX/Shutterstock

British broadcaster Channel 4 is doubling down on comedy after handing the genre a £10M (US$13.4M) budget boost and scoring a number of projects involving Catastrophe creator Sharon Horgan.

Horgan will star and exec produce Happy AF (w/t), a comedy about trying to find happiness. Created by Aisling Bea, who is set to star in Amy Poehlers forthcoming NBC comedy I Feel Bad, the series stars her as Aine, who is trying to pull her life back together after a nervous breakdown. Horgan, who produces through her Merman banner, also stars as her sister Shona.

Horgan is also producing a TV adaptation of The Guilty Feminist podcast fronted by creator Deborah Frances-White. The 45-minute pilot, dubbed Next Weeks News, will be based in a studio, overseen by a female-led production team, with followers encouraged to speak out on a range of issues. Merman, which is run by Horgan and her producing partner Clelia Mountford, will produce.

Horgans involvement in two C4 shows will be a boon for the linear broadcaster, particularly as she recently signed an overall deal with Amazon.

The series will form part of Channel 4s “comedy sandpit” and marks the first major programming moves by recently installed content chief Ian Katz. The former Guardian and BBC exec outlined his initial vision for the broadcaster in a packed room of British TV executives, including Expectation Entertainment co-founder and former ITV content boss Peter Fincham, Studio Lambert boss Stephen Lambert and Richard McKerrow, boss of The Great British Bake Off producer Love Productions, that he wanted to create a “comedy sandpit”.

Katz also revealed plans to bolster the 11pm slot, saying that he wanted it to be the “most creative space on British TV”, a slot that has previously featured anarchic formats including The Word.

Meanwhile, E4, which airs series such as Made In Chelsea and was responsible for The Inbetweeners, has been handed an additional budget of £10M (US$13.4M) and will get its own dedicated controller.

Elsewhere, presenter Jamali Maddix, who recently presented Vices Hate Thy Neighbour, will explore the wild west frontier of our the new digital era in a three-part series produced by Acme Films. Futureproof will follow Jamali as he meets the people finding new ways to sell sex, become celebrities – and maybe even change the world.

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