Channel 4.0 has announced plans to launch weekly innovation slot Savage Sundays as a regular strand. The key beneficiary is After Party Studios, which has been commissioned to produce 11 new episodes of three shows for the strand.
Kaio Grizzelle, digital commissioning executive, Channel 4 said: “After a series of successful pilots from After Party Studios, we’re excited to launch Savage Sundays as an official strand that we can build familiarity and a returning audience around. (Its) brilliant formats have resonated with our viewers, proving our strategy to innovate with creative PSB-driven British IP that stands out on the busy platform. Audiences can look forward to new ideas too, as we continue to pilot in this space.”
A major to come out of Channel 4.0’s content pilot programme was Find The Cheater, starring Nella Rose and Ava Hirons. The full episode has racked up 3.4 million views on the PSB youth brand’s YouTube channel and cut downs that have generated over 34 million views on C4.0’s TikTok page in just over one month.
Building on this, the first confirmed return in the new Savage Sunday strand will be five episodes of Find The…, which will expand on the concept of Find The Cheater. It will feature Nella Rose, Harry Pinero, Chloe Burrows and Adeola Patronne attempting to decipher if contributors are who they say they are based on initial impressions.
Also making a return are four episodes of Dilemmas and two of Cooked. The pilot of Dilemmas saw viewers beloved C4.0 Aunties solve civilians’ life questions. Cooked, meanwhile, is a roundtable bluffing game in which five creators play a game of friendly savage roasting, where two of them are secretly writing jokes about everyone.
The formats featured in Savage Sundays were commissioned by Kaio Grizzelle with Sacha Khari, head of digital commissioning. The episodes are executive produced by Sam Ewen and Jamie MacDonald from After Party Studios, and produced by Fatima Rahouma. The episodes will premiere on Channel 4.0 from Sunday 12 October.
Ewen, head of entertainment at After Party Studios, said: “Since joining After Party Studios, I’ve been focused on building a new content slate with a premium white cove entertainment focus, creating compelling, shareable moments that resonate far beyond the hero episode. These formats are designed not just for long form YouTube viewing, but also built for scale across shortform platforms. To see that strategy already paying off with further commissions for Channel 4.0 is incredibly rewarding.”
