About:
Client: Renegade Pictures
Channel: Channel 4
Date: 16 September 2020
Lost at Sea is an epic tale of the ocean and a young man exploring the life and death of his father. Peter Bird, a forgotten British sporting hero, was the first person to row the Pacific single‐handed. Peter continued to set new ocean-rowing records throughout his life, often in treacherous conditions. In 1991, his son Louis was born. Despite this, Peter continued to go away and on a 1996 crossing, he disappeared at sea; Louis was five years old. This film follows Louis' attempt to piece together his father's life: a father he hardly knew. This is a dramatic tale of obsession and extreme isolation, and an intimate exploration of coming to terms with feelings of loss and abandonment.
Project:
tpr media was commissioned by Renegade Pictures to carry out a broad-ranging, high-visibility campaign to raise the profile and drive viewers for the Channel 4 broadcast of Lost at Sea. We identified key angles which appealed to specific media outlets. These included Louis Bird's grief and feelings of loss and abandonment, struggles with mental health and eventually coming to terms with his father's death.
There were over 60 pieces of coverage across broadsheets, mid‐market tabloids and tabloids as well as radio. Key coverage included a feature in The Times T2, a tabloid piece in The Mirror as well as a major feature in The Radio Times. Louis appeared on three radio shows: BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live, Friday with Chiles on BBC Radio 5 and BBC World Service's Newsday. Lost at Sea was very well received with many picks of the day and three 4‐star reviews in The Times, The Telegraph and i‐news. See coverage here.