Simon Cowell to swap X Factor and BGT for true-crime documentaries

Simon Cowell will produce a new four-part crime documentary series for ITV.

The man behind talent show behemoths The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent will turn his attentions to the making of true-crime documentaries after joining forces with former policeman Mark Williams-Thomas, the reporter who famously exposed Jimmy Savile.

The new series, which hopes to tap into the same audience that became so captivated by Netflix’s Making a Murderer and HBO’s The Jinx, is titled The Investigator: A British Crime Story. It is a coproduction between Cowell’s production company Syco and ITV Studios label Shiver. Broadcast reports that the series will “fuse the genres of ‘stylised drama with compelling documentary'”.

The new series will investigate the case of Carole Packman, who has been missing since 1985. Despite authorities never finding her body, her husband Russell Packman was convicted for her murder some nine years later and her story continues to baffle detectives even today. The story will air next month.

Williams-Thomas previously presented the award-winning documentary examining the secret life of notorious child-abuser Jimmy Savile, The Other Side of Jimmy Savile, in 2012. Earlier in June, ITV broadcast his interview with convicted murderer and former athlete Oscar Pistorious.