Netflix Explores Killer Ratings; Doc Series To Explore Strange Case Of Brazilian TV Host Who Tried To Boost Ratings By Allegedly Ordering Murders
EXCLUSIVE: The story of Brazilian TV host turned politician Wallace Souza, who was accused of orderi..
EXCLUSIVE: The story of Brazilian TV host turned politician Wallace Souza, who was accused of ordering murders in order to bolster ratings of his crime series, is to be made into a seven-part documentary series for Netflix.
The SVOD service has ordered Killer Ratings from British factual producers Caravan and Quicksilver. Caravan is the All3Media-backed firm responsible for Nat Geos Buried Secrets of the Bible and is run by Dinah Lord, who has won BAFTAs including in 2015 for Grayson Perry: Who Are You?, while Quicksilver is run by Eamonn Matthews, who has won Emmys for series including PBS and BBCs Outbreak: The Truth About Ebola and PBS and Channel 4s Undercover Syria.
Souza rose to fame as the host of Canal Livre, a TV show broadcast in Manaus, the remote and lawless city surrounded by jungle in the heart of Brazils Amazon. The show was a hit but its reputation was tarnished when it was claimed that Souza was only able to make it first to certain crime scenes because he had ordered the murders himself. His former bodyguard accused him of being the head of a criminal organization.
In October 2009, he was charged with murder, drug-trafficking, intimidation of witnesses, illegal carrying of arms and the formation of a criminal and was expelled from the state assembly. After the arrest warrant was issued, he disappeared but subsequently gave himself up before dying of a heart attack the following year.
The team behind Killer Ratings has assembled a huge trove of information on the case, including exclusive interviews with people inside Canal Livre, close relatives, friends, police and members of the police task force, as well as previously unseen footage of Souza filmed in the middle of the scandal.
