Idea for new parenting advice TV show based on Mumsnet Talk - your thoughts/input needed

[JustineMumsnet]

You may have clocked a wee announcement last week that Channel 4 are interested in making a TV show featuring real mums sharing their best support and advice to others in need of it, a sort of TV version of Mumsnet Talk. We have been approached by the production company - Studio Lambert - to work together to come up with a pilot for the show.

If it's commissioned it's likely to be 6-8 programmes of 1 hour length (48 mins without the ads). The (very rough) idea is to have 4 or so featured families per show, each with a specific parenting problem and a range of mums who've been there and done that or just have some insight, giving their help, support and advice in an attempt to help them through the problem, a la Mumsnet.

We're at a very early stage but we wanted to ask for any thoughts about format, participation, whether/how you'd like to be approached - a panel, a sticky thread? - what you think the pitfalls are, what the opportunities are, what subject matter you'd like to see covered and indeed anything else that springs to mind on the subject.

Many thanks in advance for your input.

but basically what you are talking about, saf, is how women are still being shafted. which would be fascinating to see on tv but wouldn't attract the attention that a bunch of 'grumpy old mothers' blah blah blah would.

daisy goodwin, for example, is not a nasty idiot (she isn't) but look at what she and Silver River were prepared to do to newborn babies in order to go out at primetime on the back of shitloads of press coverage.

I agree with everything you just said, swallowedAfly. My granny had 5 children and worked all hours, in a job she didn't enjoy, to support them after her husband died; my mother has 4 children and works full-time for the NHS and various charities because she has passion; one of my sisters is a very happy stay at home mum... and I work all hours and love it!

I was refering to the mums I work with in telly and I guess my comment only goes to emphasise how difficult it can be in this industry. Certainly didn't mean to sound twee.

Bad Mums Club is just a working title and titles often change a lot before programmes make it to air, so it's really useful to get your thoughts on it. We'll definitely take this feedback on board. We want something that attracts an audience and gives a sense that this is going to be different from all the Suppernanny type shows we've seen before - something that suggests it's lead by the parents and that it's going to be a little bit irreverent and entertaining. I'm sure there will be lots more brainstorming at this end for ideas, and maybe we can test out other suggestions on here nearer the time.

I don't have children,BecauseImworthIt. I wish I did.

swallowedAfly all this stuff is really useful - thanks. I have to dash off now to go and view another programme I'm working on, but I will come back on here later today and respond to the rest... I'm to bloody slow at replying to keep up - mostly because I'm trying to do too many other things at the same time!

That title will be a big red neon emobossed flag for lots of people.

And why would anyone watch that for advice? If you think its cool to be a Bad Mum you probably think you know already or don't care how everyone else thinks you should parent.

LOVE the idea of behind the scences at MNHQ.

i think we all know what a working title is, though, ros, but the fact that it wasn't snorted at in disgust and immediately abandoned on first mention is a worry.

i think there is SO MUCH to say about womens' lives today, including the fact that you love your career while wishing you have children. It would be AMAZING if a show could take us seriously enough to address those types of things. but it wouldn't attract a wide enough audience to make it anything other than BBC4 fodder.

Sorry, Ros, if my question sounded a bit blunt. It wasn't meant to, just reflected the fact that I shouldn't be on here but should be working .

And apologies if it was an overly personal question. However, the reason I asked if you had children is because it really, genuinely gives you a completely different perspective on the whole issue. I'd be really interested to read your book, swallowedafly, for that very reason.

We all think we know what it must be like to have children, but until it actually happens to you, you never fully get what actually happens. It isn't just about 9 months of glowing/getting bigger and shopping in MotherCare, to then produce (by fair means or foul) a lovely bundle of joy at the end.

It's about a complete redefinition (in many cases) of who you are, your relationship with your partner (and family, often), as well as a re-appraisal of your own career plans, intentions and realities.

I'm aware that it sounds terribly patronising to say that you don't understand it until it's happened to you, but in this instance I think it's absolutely true.

I hope this doesn't appear overly negative, although I can't see how you wouldn't take it like that - but being a mum is so much more than just being a mum - and these are the issues that I think your programme ought to be considering about including, alongside the momentarily pressing issues such as nappies/weaning/toilet training, etc (which is also not to diss how important those are at the time you're in those moments)

and finances. a complete redefinition of your finances. not because children are expensive, because they aren't necessarily, but because as a woman, every opportunity you had to earn money just dived off a cliff.

No real suggestions but I'm posting to put this thread in Threads I'm on.

God, yes, a really thoughtful, intelligent appraisal of where women (especially mothers) are today in a historical, socio-economic, even political context would be really fascinating.

And much more enjoyable than "whoops, I forgot his nappy, pass me another glass of Chardonnay, missus!"

Adds vote to new idea as over Squeaver's last post.

Bored with :
a. How to be a perfect Mum advice
b. Pendulum swing to ho-ho I'm a bad Mum (but really trying to be perfect)

The Bad Mums' Club, eh?

Hmm. At least the apostrophe's right.

Absolutely, Aitch.

I'd read it, swallowed. And help.

i think you'd get a lot of help, saf. it sounds really interesting. a sort of 'rough guide to womanhood'. (without actually being a rough guide, bien sur, for that too is terribly 90s).

But surely this thread isn't about trying to get professional-standard advice for free (and so undercut even further the chances of professionals getting the paid work they need). It's just about creating an interactive (or faux-interactive) buzz around the show, as part of the generation of publicity for it? They want to market the program as 'by mums for mums' so they haul MNers into the programme-formation stage as much as into the actual content?

And it won't matter just how crashingly awful the show is because if everyone piles online to call it rubbish that is just more publicity for the show and more hits/members for MN?

well, so-called crowd-sourcing is v popular at the moment, but i would still call it 'ripping off other people's ideas', whether they are professional or not.

as to your other point... well...

Most of the product placement threads that Mn carries seem to ask for 'feedback' on products that are already finalised and on the shelves. I guess the idea is just to get people talking about the product -- rather than to actually crowdsource elements of its design. So I thought that might be what is going on here (to some extent at least). Not crowdsourced product design, but crowdsourced publicity (plus the feelgood generation of a completely false sense of empowerment). So I feel sceptical that the crowdsourcing on this thread undermines anyone's chance of a paid commission? (Though I am speaking entirely as an ignorant, flap-yer-jaws outsider to the industry)

it's more the principle, tbh. it shouldn't happen. if they want ideas, they should pay for them.

SL did Seven Days, which absolutely TANKED. the one thing they did quite well on, apparently, was online activity. so you may well be right.