JAM TV’s doco on Scott Miller may be the first of many projects for ABC News documentary unit.

In the past decade ABC News has only partnered with an external production company three times, but that could be about to shift under recent ABC News changes.

In the Deep End: The Scott Miller Story is co-produced by ABC News and Eddie McGuire’s JAM TV, the second project from the recently forged ABC News Documentary Unit, headed up by Caitlin Shea former Australian Story Executive Producer. Its first title Diabolical: The Epstein Files, produced in-house, screened earlier this year.

The unit was announced by then-ABC News director Justin Stevens to produce “additional high impact, premium news documentary programs to complement the ABC’s strong factual slate.”

JAM TV pitched the project to ABC which gave it the prized 8pm Monday timeslot across two weeks. Scott Miller’s rise and fall certainly makes for compelling storytelling, and could have easily worked as an Australian Story tale, but JAM TV had access to the talent.

It marked a rare occasion ABC News partnered with an external production company. The last was for Witness to History, a retrospective on former ABC News cameraman David Brill with Digital Kitchen in 2025. Previous co-productions include a Foreign Correspondent episode with France’s ARTE on Israel’s ultra-Orthodox communities in 2022 and a 2016 Four Corners profile of former ABC presenter Liz Jackson through her partner’s production company Contact Films.

Is ABC News partnering with external production companies part of a new vision by managing director Hugh Marks? And was it any way related to the departure of News Director Justin Stevens given Marks has inferred the two were unable to agree on the way forward for ABC News?

ABC wouldn’t be drawn on any internal politics but said in a statement the unit aims to differ from weekly ABC News programming.

“The concept builds on the success of individual high-end news documentaries such as Killing Season and Nemesis, aiming to produce additional high impact, premium news documentary programs to complement the ABC’s strong factual slate.

“The unit works with News teams and with other areas of the ABC, including with the Screen Factual team in conjunction with the external production sector,” an ABC statement said.

“If an external production company has access to a story which fits the News Documentary remit we are interested in exploring the idea of a co-production whereby the content is produced externally but supervised closely by the EP of News Documentary Caitlin Shea.

“If the News Documentary unit has developed an idea that’s more suitable for an external partner we’ll consider external production companies to produce the content under the supervision of the News Documentary EP.”

The unit falls within the ABC News Investigative Journalism and Current Affairs team led by Jo Puccini. ABC retains editorial control on the content.

So how should independent producers pitch to the new unit?

“The News Doco unit is always looking for untold, riveting and complex narratives that can be turned into one-off documentaries or docuseries. But we are looking for more than ideas. We’d love producers – both in the ABC and externally – to come to us having already secured strong access to interviewees and visual storytelling elements,” ABC said in a statement.

News boss changes aside, the unit appears to paying dividends. Diabolical: The Epstein Files averaged 780,000 viewers and has sold into more than 20 territories internationally.

In the Deep End: The Scott Miller Story also averaged 616,000 with Part 2 next Monday.

Executive Producer Caitlin Shea said, “I feel the potential for News to create more high-end documentaries is enormous, and I relish the challenge of steering this new direction.”