The Bay is an ITV crime drama series produced by Tall Story Pictures and distributed worldwide by ITV Studios Global Entertainment that first aired in March 2019. The first two series starred Morven Christie as a detective sergeant family liaison officer. Marsha Thomason took over the leading role from series three as DS Jenn Townsend. The first series centred around an investigation into teenage missing twins from a family living in Morecambe. The name of the series derives from Morecambe Bay, in the county of Lancashire in the north-west of England.

The first series received an average of 7.2 million views across the six episodes. A second series of six episodes was confirmed on 4 May 2019 and it was originally planned for it to be broadcast in mid-2020. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was pushed back to early 2021; in January of that year, all six episodes were immediately made available on the ITV Hub, receiving an average of 7.9 million views.A third series was filmed in the summer 2021. Christie decided to leave the show following production on the second series and Marsha Thomason was cast as the new lead, DS Jenn Townsend. After the last episode of series 3 was broadcast a fourth series was announced, and filming completed June 2022. It was renewed for a fifth series and filming began in July 2023.