From Bollywed to baking, CBC’s unscripted and documentary team wants to engage new audiences by shining a light on remarkable Canadians and their achievements.

Jennifer Dettman (pictured right), executive director, unscripted content, CBC, tells Playback they’re focused on finding projects featuring connections to the country – whether it be through people or geography – and sparking a cultural conversation about what makes them unique.

Recent examples include competition reality format Canada’s Ultimate Challenge (Insight Productions, The Gurin Company), which sees athletes coaching players through challenges across the country, and unscripted series Push (pictured above; Fenix Film & Television, Small Army Entertainment), about a group of friends and wheelchair users known as the “Wheelie Peeps.” Both premiered in February and have been renewed for second seasons.

Then there’s docuseries Bollywed (HeartHat Entertainment), about the Singh family and their bridal shop in Toronto’s Little India neighbourhood, which launched in January and was renewed in March. Also renewed is the Canada-Australia copro docuseries Stuff the British Stole, a co-commission by CBC and Australia’s ABC from Toronto’s Cream Productions and Australia’s Wooden Horse and WildBear Entertainment.
Playback: What is the current overall commissioning and content strategy for CBC unscripted?

Jennifer Dettman: There are specific buckets of work that we do. In the factual entertainment side of things, there’s the uniquely Canadian competition series. We’re finding real success in shows like The Great Canadian Baking Show (Boat Rocker’s Proper Television), Best in Miniature (marblemedia), Race Against the Tide (marblemedia), and we have [The Great Canadian Pottery Throw Down (Frantic Films)].” We’re always looking for competition shows, but there’s a real gentleness to them. They’re about Canadians and their passions and the niche work they’re doing, but have broad appeal. Canada’s Ultimate Challenge is one of the most ambitious shows I think we’ve ever done. It made you fall in love with this country and its geography.

The other is point-of-view docuseries, where you’re landing in a community that often hasn’t had a light shone on it and applying the genre of docuseries to it. So we’ve got Bollywed and Push, and we certainly are looking for more of those types of productions. Both of those did really well — they had a distinct point of view, were highly engaging and entertaining with big characters that you wanted to spend time with, and you got to know a little bit more about the world that they live in.

Another big area of focus for us would be on the documentary side — premium features, premium documentary series. We’ve got a big documentary series coming up this fall on the Black experience in Canada, it’s an eight-part series [called Black Life: Untold Stories (Studio 112, Northwood Entertainment, Ugly Duck)]. Very high production value, great storytelling. So we’re looking for more of those types of both features and series – premium, high-end and documentary.

Are there any trends in unscripted you’re eyeing?

JD: We look at different ways that we might take on a travel show that could work for us. Still Standing (Frantic Films) is a version of a travel show, so we ask ourselves, ‘Could we do something else to complement that, something more in that space?’ It’s personality-driven travel shows — someone leading the show who might be well-known, who takes us to places. But it’s what else they do, how they do it, is where the uniqueness would be for us.

We’re open to a lot of different things. We haven’t been as much in the space of things like studio-based music shows … because it has been a very crowded space and we haven’t felt that audiences have responded very well to them.

Some of these series seem to have a high potential for binge-watching on CBC Gem. Is that important?

JD: Yes, now when we commission, we commission for that audience, and we’re thinking about [the demographic] 30 to 49. One of the things which is exciting is we’re thinking more about how we window our content — how do we release it out into the world? How many episodes?

We don’t think about, ‘What are we going to do for CBC Gem, what are we going to do for CBC television?’ We just say, ‘How are we going to serve our audiences?’ And that audience is young and diverse.

This article originally appeared in Playback‘s Spring 2023 issue. The interview has been edited and condensed.

All photos courtesy of CBC. Featured image: “Wheelie Peeps” of CBC unscripted series Push in front of the Edmonton mural.