Benefits Street

In 2012, Love Productions approached the BBC with the idea for a programme that would feature a prominent member of the business community working with unemployed people, but the show did not come to fruition after the unnamed individual had to withdraw from it because of other commitments.

Love Productions then suggested the format to Channel 4, who agreed to commission the programme.

Writing in The Observer in January 2014, Nick Mirsky, head of documentaries at Channel 4, said that Love Productions intentionally selected an area where a high proportion of the residents were in receipt of welfare payments "to show the effect of benefit cuts on a community for whom they were the principal source of income".

Both Mirsky, and Ralph Lee, Channel 4's head of factual programming, said the residents of James Turner Street were consulted about the series before filming began.

The voice-over was provided by former Coronation Street actor Tony Hirst instead.

The first episode of Benefits Street was aired at 9:00 pm on Monday 6 January 2014, and ran for five episodes.