Channel 5's Ben Frow Says He Would Never Commission BBC's Sarah Everard Drama
Ben Frow, chief content officer at Channel 5, has said he would never have commissioned a drama about Sarah Everard's murder — the very project the BBC is now pursuing with screenwriter Jeff Pope.
Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival on 27 August 2026, Frow outlined the three questions he asks before greenlighting any programme: "Would I watch it?", "Is it more trouble than it's worth?" and "Why am I doing it?" Variety. On the Everard drama, his answer to at least one of those questions was clearly no.
Sarah Everard was murdered in March 2021 by Wayne Couzens, a serving Metropolitan Police officer who falsely arrested her for breaking lockdown rules before kidnapping and killing her in Clapham, south London Deadline. The BBC's two-part factual drama, written by Pope, will not dramatise the kidnap and murder itself. Instead it focuses on the police investigation and the circumstances that allowed Couzens to become and remain an officer C21 Media.
The BBC faced significant backlash over its choice of writer. Around 400 female scriptwriters signed a letter criticising the appointment of Pope, a male screenwriter, for a story many felt was deeply personal to women The Times. Pope subsequently defended his role on the project.
Frow's own commissioning record on real-life tragedies is not without controversy. Channel 5, owned by Paramount, has commissioned dramas about Madeleine McCann — the toddler who disappeared in Portugal in 2007 and has never been found — and about Huw Edwards, the BBC newsreader convicted of downloading images of child sexual abuse Variety.
He acknowledged that the landscape has shifted. Contributor welfare and privacy, he said, are far more important considerations today than they were a decade ago. He also admitted he has written off programmes because people felt strongly they should not be made, or were done in the wrong way.
Channel 5 is simultaneously facing legal action from Blackbox Media, a production company that has filed a lawsuit over a shelved drama series Variety.
The contrast is striking. Frow draws a line at Everard while backing dramas on other cases that carry their own profound sensitivities. His framework — would I watch it, is it worth the trouble, why am I doing it — leaves the audience to judge where that line should sit.
