Television Magazine, March 2015

March 2015

Rona Fairhead

Trust in the public

Apply now for the 2015 Shiers Trust Award

d £2,000 e e n oury of television project? y Dor a histo

o £2,000 towards ant of up t e a gr k a f o ct the history of television an m on any aspe c t s k Tru wor The lishing b pu

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Objectives

The promotion of public education through the study and research of the history of ­television in all its aspects and without regard to country of origin, including the d ­ evelopment and encouragement of publications and associated projects such as ­bibliographies and monographs on particular aspects, provided that the results of such study and research shall be published and that the contribution made by the Trust shall be suitably acknowledged in any publication.

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Criteria

Grants will be given to assist in the ­completion of new or unfinished projects, work or literature specific to the objectives of the trust. ‘Literature’ is defined as including audio-visual media such as CD-Roms and websites.

The Trustees must be satisfied that the work they are supporting either could not be finished or ­published without the grant and that, with it, the work will be ­completed, or, the grant will provide the ­initial phase of a project that will be c­ ontinued and completed with other i­dentified funding.

Applications will be considered broadly in support of research, development, writing, editing or publication. Grants for research will require that the results of the work will be made known and accessible through appropriate means. In the case of literature, projects must have a real prospect of publication. Applicants must demonstrate that their work will have a clear e ­ xpectation of making a s­ ignificant contribution to the objectives of the Trust.

Applicants will be required to satisfy the Trustees of the soundness of their projects, and identify any grants from other sources. The Trustees will not make commitments to support re­curring funding, nor make grants to cover fees or maintenance of students undertaking courses.

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George Shiers

George Shiers, a distinguished US television historian, was a long-­standing member of the RTS. Before his death in 1983, he and his wife May ­provided for a bequest in their wills. The Shiers Trust grant, now in its 15th year, is normally worth £2,000.

Grants will be consid­ered and approved by the Trustees who may, at their ­discretion, consult appropriate experts to assist their decisions. In assessing priorities, the Trustees will take into account the sums of money available.

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Application procedure

Applications are now invited and should be submitted to the Trustees by 31 March 2015 on an official ­application form (available from the RTS, address below). Applications should set out the nature of the project in not more than 500 words.

Supporting ­documentation may also be included. Details of your experience or qualifications should be provided. Applicants should ensure that their project conforms to all the criteria. Applications should be accompanied by a budget that clearly identifies the sum being requested for a grant and the ­purposes for which it will be used. Application forms are available from the RTS and should be returned to the same address:

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lare Colvin, archivist C Royal Television Society Kildare House 3 Dorset Rise London EC4Y 8EN clare@rts.org.uk

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Previous recipients

1 2 014: Shared between Dr Sheldon Hall, whose Armchair Cinema is a study of feature films on British television, and Marc Scott, whose research focuses on the unofficial development of TV in Australia 2 2013: Barry Fox has built a website (www.tekkiepix.com) to present his collection of historical consumer electronics imagery and documents.

The picture shows a publicity still for Philips’s optical videodisc 3 2012: Paul Marshall researched a biography of Alan Archibald Campbell Swinton, the early visionary of all-electronic television 4 2012: Simon Vaughan digitised the 300-page ‘Black Book’, the first manual of the Marconi-EMI electronic television system, installed in 1936 5 2011: David Rose presented an illustrated retrospective of his exceptional career as a ground-breaking television and film producer to a large number of live audiences 6 2008/2010: Steve Arnold digitised back issues of Radio Times to make a searchable online archive of articles and schedules 7 2001: Simon Vaughan, archivist of the Alexandra Palace Television Society, printed a collection of 1,200 photos by the father of television lighting, Desmond Robert Campbell 8 2004: Don McLean compiled an authentically accurate audio two-CD presentation of the beginnings of television in Britain.

9 2005: John Grist wrote a biography of Grace Wyndham Goldie, the first Head of BBC Television News and Current Affairs 10 2009: Ronald Sandell, a key planner of the analogue terrestrial transmitter network, conducted research for a book, Seventy Years Before the Masts 11 2010: John Wyver conducted interviews on the presentation of theatre plays on British television

Journal of The Royal Television Society March 2015 l Volume 52/3

From the CEO The atmosphere at the RTS Television Journalism Awards is always highly charged. This year’s ceremony was positively electric.

I’d like to personally congratulate all the winners and to give a special mention to the winners of the Judges’ Award, the three imprisoned Al Jazeera journalists: Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed.

It was a real thrill that Peter could be there at the Hilton to receive his award.

Unfortunately, his two colleagues remain on bail in Cairo. Peter’s speech – relayed live to Cairo so that Mohamed and Baher could hear it – was both touching and inspirational.

It was a very memorable evening.

Thanks to Peter for attending and to those who organised this unique tribute to the Al Jazeera journalists.

Another of the night’s winners was Sky News. Don’t miss Andrew Billen’s interview this month with the channel’s editor, John Ryley.

On 25 February, the Society held its first nominations breakfast for the RTS Programme Awards. At Covent

Contents

Garden’s Hospital Club, we heard who the nominees are on what is set to be a glamorous night out on 17 March.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Finally, I’d like to thank Rona Fairhead, Chair of the BBC Trust, for providing such an insight into how she sees the Trust’s role. It was a great event and very well attended.

Theresa Wise

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Fiona Stourton’s TV Diary

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A lot to laugh about

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Ryley on a roll

23 24 28 30

The BBC: don’t take it for granted

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RTS Television Journalism Awards

9 14 17 18

In a week when Fiona Stourton feels mixed emotions at the RTS Television Journalism Awards, one thing keeps stressing her out – moving office Last month, Sky News was again named News Channel of the Year. Andrew Billen unlocks why station chief John Ryley outpaces his rivals

The voice of the licence payer

Rona Fairhead lays out the BBC Trust’s role in making the corporation fit for purpose

BT TV’s power team

Kate Bulkley profiles the top trio at BT who are tweaking Sky’s tail and leading the telco’s TV strategy

Our Friend in the North

Advances in sexual equality in broadcasting are superficial, suggests Barbara Govan

Engineering a future for kids at the BBC

Alice Webb has never made a kids’ show – yet her job is to preserve BBC children’s services, reports Tara Conlan

With more outlets than ever, comedy production has mushroomed. Pippa Shawley looks at what is making the commissioners chuckle

Lord Dobbs argues that, in an uncertain world, we need the BBC more than ever, says Steve Clarke

Brand new shows – opportunity knocks Advertisers are showing new interest in financing content, reports Steve Clarke

The secrets of their success

Class is less the barrier to getting on in TV than it was, say five successful executives, hears Matthew Bell

Soft power on a shrinking income

Its many supporters say the BBC World Service is more vital than ever, so how come it remains strapped for cash? asks Raymond Snoddy

The awards ceremony on 18 February 2015 at the Hilton, Park Lane was hosted by Becky Anderson Cover photo: Dillon Bryden

Editor Steve Clarke smclarke_333@hotmail.com Writer Matthew Bell bell127@btinternet.com

Production, design, advertising Gordon Jamieson gordon.jamieson.01@gmail.com Sub-editor Sarah Bancroft smbancroft@me.com

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

Royal Television Society 3 Dorset Rise, London EC4Y 8EN T: 020 7822 2810 E: info@rts.org.uk W: wwwrts.org.uk

Subscription rates UK £115 Overseas (surface £146.11) Overseas (airmail £172.22) Enquiries: publication@rts.org.uk

Printing ISSN 0308-454X Printer: FE Burman, 20 Crimscott St, London, SE1 STP

Legal notice © Royal Television Society 2015.

The views expressed in Television are not necessarily those of the RTS Registered Charity 313 728

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RTS NEWS National events RTS AWARDS Tuesday 17 March RTS Programme Awards 2013-2014 Venue: Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London W1K 7TN ■ Callum Stott 020 7822 2822 ■ callum@rts.org.uk RTS EARLY EVENING EVENT Wednesday 25 March

Armando Iannucci in conversation with Lucy Lumsden Venue: Telford Theatre, One Great George Street, London SW1P 3AA RTS FUTURES Monday 27 April

What’s in the digital world for me?

Venue: The Hospital Club, 24 Endell Street, London WC2H 9HQ ■ Book online at www.rts.org.uk RTS FUTURES Monday 11 May

First dates

A formatting event Venue: Hallam Conference Centre, 44 Hallam St, London W1W 6JJ ■ Book online at www.rts.org.uk RTS AWARDS Friday 5 June RTS Student Television Awards 2014 Venue: BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XT RTS FUTURES Thursday 16 July Summer party Venue: TBC RTS CONVENTION 16-18 September RTS Cambridge Convention 2015 Venue: King’s College, Cambridge

Local events BRISTOL ■ John Durrant ■ john@bdh.net

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DEVON & CORNWALL ■ Contact TBC EAST ANGLIA ■ Contact TBC LONDON Wednesday 18 March

Getting in and getting on Speakers: Kathy Poole, Head of People Services, C4; Susie Worster, Head of Creative Talent, Wall to Wall; Jude Winstanley, Founder, The Unit Lisdt; Suzie March, Series Producer, The National Lottery, Princes Productions. Chair, Kristin Mason. 6:30pm for 7:00pm Venue: Riverside Bar, ITV Studios, Upper Ground, London SE1 9LT Wednesday 15 April

TV sport: future technologies

6:30pm for 7:00pm Venue: BBC Research & Development, Centre House, 56 Wood Lane, London W12 7SB Wednesday 29 April;

Suspects: an unusual drama

6:30pm for 7:00pm Venue: Riverside Bar, ITV Studios, Upper Ground, London SE1 9LT ■ Daniel Cherowbrier ■ daniel@cherowbrier.co.uk MIDLANDS Thursday 26 March

Tony Pilgrim Memorial Lunch Venue: TBC March to May

Education workshops in secondary schools These will give students in years 8 and 9 an insight into jobs in the television industry.

■ 18 March Aldridge School, Walsall ■ 14 April Holly Lodge School, Sandwell ■ 16 April Blue Coat Academy, Walsall ■ 21 April Baxter College, Kidderminster ■ 23 April King Charles 1 School, Kidderminster ■ 30 April Charlton School, Wellington ■ 17 May SCA Academy, Walsall March to April

Educators’ seminars

For careers advisers and for teachers and lecturers of media, literacy and drama

■ 4 March Edgbaston University, Birmingham ■ 28 April Worcester University April to May

RTS industry update roadshows ■ 22 April Birmingham, venue TBC ■ 26 April Worcester University ■ 21 May BBC Nottingham ■ Jayne Greene 07792 776585 ■ jayne@ijmmedia.co.uk

NORTH EAST & THE BORDER ■ Jill Graham ■ jill.graham@blueyonder.co.uk

Your guide to upcoming national and regional events

Klein, Director of Factual, ITV; and representatives of regional indies. 2:00pm-5:30pm Venue: Bournemouth University, Fern Barrow, Talbot Campus, Poole, Dorset BH12 5BB ■ Gordon Cooper ■ gordonjcooper@gmail.com THAMES VALLEY Wednesday 18 March

Niche channels: IPTV delivery models Venue: Pincents Manor, Calcot, Reading RG31 4UQ Wednesday 13 May

NORTH WEST ■ Rachel Pinkney 07966 230639 ■ rachelpinkney@yahoo.co.uk

NAB review

NORTHERN IRELAND Tuesday 24 March

Summer BBQ – Drone fest

Student Television Awards Venue: E3 Campus, Belfast Metropolitan University, 398 Springfield Rd, Belfast BT12 7DU ■ John Mitchell ■ mitch.mvbroadcast@ btinternet.com REPUBLIC OF IRELAND Tuesday 24 March

Documentary production Presentation by Brian Reddin, Dearg Films. 8:00pm Venue: Studio 4 Audience Reception, RTÉ Television Centre ■ Charles Byrne (00353) 87251 3092 ■ byrnecd@iol.ie SCOTLAND Wednesday 20 May

Annual Awards

Venue: Oran Mor, Glasgow G12 8QX ■ James Wilson 07899 761167 ■ james.wilson@ cityofglasgowcollege.ac.uk SOUTHERN Wednesday 18 March

Meet the professionals An opportunity for media-based HE and FE media students to meet informally with a range of media professionals. Attendees will include: Peter Salmon, Director, England, BBC; Richard

Venue: Pincents Manor, Calcot, Reading RG31 4UQ Wednesday 1 July 18:30pm-20:30pm approx Venue: Pincents Manor, Calcot, Reading RG31 4UQ ■ Penny Westlake ■ info@rtstvc.org.uk WALES Tuesday 17 March

Coffee shop debate: the future of broadcasting in Wales 6:00pm Venue: Aberystwyth University Friday 27 March

What next? Breaking into the Media Panel discussion in association with the Zoom International Youth Film Festival. 2:30pm4:00pm. Followed by:

RTS Wales Student Awards

6:00pm Venue: Bridgend College, Cowbridge Road, Bridgend CF31 3DF Monday 27 April

Digital post-production software

In association with Digital Media Training Cardiff. 7:00pm Venue: DMT, Pascoe House, Bute Street, Cardiff MapCF10 5AF ■ Hywel Wiliam 07980 007841 ■ hywel@aim.uk.com YORKSHIRE ■ Lisa Holdsworth 07790 145280 ■ lisa@allonewordproductions. co.uk

March 2015 www.rts.org.uk Television

TV diary In a week when Fiona Stourton feels mixed emotions at the RTS Television Journalism Awards, one thing keeps stressing her out – moving office

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he three most stressful events in life are supposed to be divorce, bereavement and moving house. I’d like to add a fourth – moving offices, my challenge of the moment.

The property agents’ mantra, “The price is only so high because of the Chinese”, has convinced me they are all working for UKIP. In the meantime, I’m unashamedly using this publication to appeal for 750m2 (cheap) for our three lovely production companies, Blakeway, Brook Lapping and Films of Record.

■ And so to Marlborough House, Pall Mall. Oh, that we could afford something like this as office space.

A stunning venue for a charity event hosted by the Children’s Radio Foundation. I know this is a TV diary, but where would we be without our radio colleagues, who quite often go places that cameras can’t?

The children’s charity teaches children in Africa to be radio reporters.

The speaker, Lesedi Mogoatlhe, is in tears as she describes how the latest projects have empowered children with Aids in South Africa and Ebola orphans in West Africa.

A really good cause.

■ Wednesday, 18 February is, of course, the RTS Television Journalism Awards.

Always a lively event, but sad this

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

year because the Society’s Deputy Chief Executive, Claire Price, has left.

For those of us who have chaired quarrelsome juries under her calm guidance, it’s hard to imagine how the RTS is going to manage effectively without her.

The evening is bracketed by sober stuff that makes us all reflect seriously on what we do.

The opening tribute to journalists who’ve died in the last year includes the 10 French colleagues murdered at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris and the Japanese journalist, Kenji Goto, beheaded by Isis.

■ At the end of the ceremony, the Judges’ Award goes, by popular acclaim, to the three Al Jazeera journalists jailed without justification in Egypt for the past year.

Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed remain in Cairo on bail but, hooray, Peter Greste is present to pick up the award.

His speech is both inspiring and thought provoking. There is general nodding as he describes us all as a “cranky, cantankerous, competitive lot… caricatured as only moving in the same direction when there’s a bar in the corner”.

But, he continues, the campaign to release him and his colleagues has revealed that we will fight as one for our own and for the principle of free speech.

Social media, he argues, creates

silos, as the like-minded speak among themselves. Our role as broadcasters must be to open up conversations and talk to everyone, whether they like it or not.

Peter is given a standing ovation, of course.

■ The BBC Showcase forum in Liverpool is held in the third week of February, when international buyers fly in to buy programmes. Up I go, looking for cash.

There’s extra trepidation this year because of the threat of “works on the line”. But, in fact, the journey is trouble free. The foreign broadcasters are convinced that it’s proof of the power of the BBC that disruption has been averted.

There’s an interesting development this year, as we meet colleagues from a Japanese website to discuss onehour documentaries.

We’ve always been wary of digital platforms offering tiny budgets but, in certain overseas markets, websites are genuine rivals to domestic broadcasters and they have proper funds.

■ By the way, on the subject of new offices, did I mention we have an open dog policy? Amid the demands for decent cafés/tube access/convenient buses, there is another essential: dogs must be allowed.

Fiona Stourton is Creative Director, Ten Alps TV.

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Ryley on a roll

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t 2:15pm on 9 January, two days after the Charlie Hebdo murders, news was breaking that a terrorist was holding hostages in a Jewish supermarket in Paris. In France, Sky News – named News Channel of the Year once again by the RTS last month – was at its best: making sense of a developing story with an experienced team of reporters led by its star presenters, Kay Burley and Jeremy Thompson.

But where was their boss? John Ryley was in his office in Osterley, west London – a small, glass-fronted, ground-floor room from which he can glimpse the studio’s main presentation desk – following developments on his room’s two TV sets.

“Then I went in the gallery because I thought, ‘This could all get quite tricky,’” says Ryley. “We’ve got our cameras on these places, and what’s going to happen next? That was our short-term concern.”

Because he didn’t want it to turn into a snuff movie? “Exactly. I went into the gallery because I thought that I might need to intervene here and take some very fast editorial decisions.”

In the end, the bloody conclusion happened off-camera.

But how, you ask, do I know where Ryley was at precisely 2:15pm? I know because he shares a selfie with me.

At 2:15pm each day, he takes one with his iPhone: up a mountain, at the PLO’s HQ in Ramallah; with his children in a shoe shop in Witney, Oxfordshire (where he lives). Usually, it shows him right here at Sky News.

He was promoted to its head in 2006, after 11 years at the channel, succeeding Nick Pollard, who left after an expensive relaunch that produced poor ratings returns.

Adam Boulton, then its Political Editor, confessed that Sky News had fallen a little too in love with its new set. Ryley gutted the new format’s excesses – at one point, the afternoon

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The Billen Profile

Last month, Sky News was again named RTS News Channel of the Year. Andrew Billen unlocks why station chief John Ryley outpaces his rivals sequence had three presenters – and dismantled some of the sets.

On-screen graphics became more utilitarian. Over the years, programme names were simplified. The era of opinionated presenters, such as Richard Littlejohn and Jeff Randall, passed.

“We used to have,” Ryley recalls, “this great big, animated strap that said, ‘Breaking News’ and it would pass straight behind everyone.

“We’ve taken some of the showbiz out of it. We did focus groups that told us that people just wanted the news, and they wanted the news reported in a straight way. We’ve de-showbizzed, for want of a better word.”

He does not look like a big network boss. At 53, he looks like a lean and still hungry reporter. When we meet one lunchtime at Osterley (no lunch taken), he is wearing a baggy pullover that, in

PEOPLE JUST WANTED THE NEWS, AND THEY WANTED THE NEWS REPORTED IN A STRAIGHT WAY. WE’VE DE-SHOWBIZZED

the pulling on, appears has made a schoolboy tangle of his hair.

In the US, a big story has just broken: NBC News’s anchor Brian Williams has been suspended for six months for exaggerating his exploits in Iraq.

“I think we’d take a similar approach to what they’ve taken at NBC and we might have been a little quicker than our friends in New York,” he says.

In the past, when Sky News presenters have attracted criticism, usually on grounds of overzealousness – criticism always now magnified in social media – Ryley has acted decisively without suspending anyone.

Colin Brazier, reporting from the scene of the downed Malaysian airliner in the Ukraine last July, began talking about the contents of the victims’ luggage and viewers immediately complained of a lapse in taste. Ryley, cycling in Umbria, was phoned.

“I thought, ‘Oh dear’. And then I spoke to him on the phone and realised what had happened. It was one of those things, and he expressed regret and, actually, he was quite sensible. He said, ‘I need to write something and explain why I did it and apologise.’ And so he wrote a piece in The Guardian.”

Two factors made the Williams affair particularly toxic in the US, Ryley thinks: the country’s reverence for its military and for its anchormen.

He worked at ITN in the early 1990s, at the tail end of the era of Alastair Burnet, the nearest to a Cronkite we ever got. Burnet’s example was never emulated and, at Sky News, even Ryley’s job is less that of an impresario than it once was. “I think television news, in the time that I’ve been doing it, which is a very long time, has become more focused on what is the news and the imparting of the information clearly, rather than on the performance – which I think is a good thing,” he says.

Some of Sky’s biggest names are either moving on or have already left.

Tim Marshall, its diplomatic editor, is leaving after 25 years. Ian King has

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

Richard Kendal

succeeded Jeff Randall as business presenter and Faisal Islam has replaced British television’s longest-serving political editor, Boulton, who now has an evening programme.

Ryley has hired several specialist reporters. “Sky News is, on the whole, very fast and agile with breaking news,” he believes. “We need to offer our audiences sharp analysis and insight, as well.”

“Sky News: the Next Generation” is, he says, “beginning to bear fruit” and he is happy with Boulton’s new show, currently putting on viewers.

Noting a lack of headlines being generated by it, I wonder if it is even possible to get decision-makers on at that hour, and Ryley admits that it is harder than they had thought it would be.

“There’s definitely been a shift. The Coalition Government, for the last nearly five years, unlike Labour, has sort of withdrawn government ministers from taking part.”

Ryley is discussing with the producers ways of ensuring that Boulton himself gets to conduct more of what big-name interviews there are.

Boulton will be Sky’s main anchor on election night, when “new technology” – Ryley points to his iPhone – will give Sky the choice of taking 282 declarations live; results will appear on screen via a version of a football-scores vidiprinter.

The election debate that Sky is due to jointly host with Channel 4 will, however, be chaired by Jeremy Paxman and Sky’s Burley – provided, that is, David Cameron finally agrees to turn up.

For Ryley, who campaigned for the debates in 2010, it is becoming a sore point: “I am a bit frustrated. I’m an optimist, a big optimist, and I think a debate or two, in some shape or form, will happen by the time we all go and put a cross on 7 May in the polling booth. But there’s still quite a lot of hard graft ahead.

“I think it will get cracked in the end, but it will be interesting. I think the �

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Sky

The life of Ryley

John Ryley, Head of Sky News Married to Harriet Constable; one son, two daughters Lives Witney, Oxfordshire Born Chelmsford, 21 December 1961. Brought up in Hastings Father Ted Ryley, NUF official Mother Wanda Ryley, housewife Education Eastbourne College; Durham University; 1985 Freelance radio journalist 1987 BBC News trainee 1990 ITN, news producer and then programme editor, News at Ten 1995 Sky News, producer of election results, budget and breaking news specials 2006 Head of Sky News, succeeding Nick Pollard 2010 Winner of Broadcast Digital Individual Achievement Award for his campaign for party leaders’ election debates Hobbies Cricket (on TV), cycling, fishing, theatre Watching Broadchurch Regular haunt Phoenix cinema, Oxford On Fox News ‘It’s a good fit for America. I’m not sure it would be a great fit for the UK’ On launching Sky News Tonight ‘I’m the competitive type. I did not see why Channel 4 News should have a free swing of the bat at 7:00pm every evening’

AT 53, HE LOOKS LIKE A LEAN AND STILL HUNGRY REPORTER 8

� Prime Minister will have to – how do I put this diplomatically, or even undiplomatically? – think about the consequences of taking part in no debates, just five years after he was in the vanguard of calling for them to happen.”

Would Ryley put an empty chair on the stage? “No, I wouldn’t, because, while that has obvious showbiz appeal, I think it’s irresponsible.”

He arrives at Sky each day at 6:50am and leaves exactly 12 hours later. At home, in Witney, is his wife, Harriet Constable, a former reporter-­ presenter for Central South in Abingdon. Ryley met her in a pub in Soho.

They married in 1987 and Constable gave up her career to bring up their children, now 20, 19 and 18.

Does he feel guilty? “No.” Nor does he make much of a show of regret for seeing his children less than he would have liked as they grew up. Ryley does believe in holidays, he says, and he and Harriet have a date each week, travelling from Witney to nearby Oxford for an egg-and-chip café supper followed by a movie.

A single child, he was born in Chelmsford but grew up near Hastings.

His father, Ted, worked for the National Farmers Union, married a farmer’s daughter and was never happier than when he was on a tractor.

Their big friends were the Moores, whose children included former Telegraph editor Charles and his brother, Rowan. Politics were in the air but one can infer, perhaps, not very leftish ones.

He was privately educated at Eastbourne College at the same time as Sam Kiley, Sky’s Foreign Affairs Editor.

Ryley’s ambition was to become a theatre director. At Durham, where he read Latin, English and Russian studies, he directed a Brecht play and played, “very badly”, Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman.

He almost became a barrister but, sick of exams, instead entered freelance radio journalism in Kent for Invicta FM, where he covered the ­Herald of Free Enterprise disaster, and worked for BBC Radio Sussex.

In 1987, Ryley successfully applied to be a BBC News trainee and found himself in the same intake as Jeremy Vine, with whom he remains friends.

He worked on The World at One as a producer under Kevin Marsh – “fantastic, a role model” – yet the BBC did not, in the end, suit him. “I think I may have been a bit immature,” he says. “The BBC was just so big.”

Replying to a Guardian ad, Ryley joined ITN’s News at Ten as a sub-­editor, staying until 1995. When Margaret Thatcher resigned, the network handed over to ITN for open-ended coverage – “unthinkable now,” he says.

Out of the blue, he was rung up by Ian Cook, the Head of Sky News.

“I caught the tube to Osterley. I walked up the road, and I thought, ‘What on earth am I doing?’ Then I went in there and I thought, ‘OK, this is quite exciting. It’s 24-hour news.

This could be a really big canvas.’”

Even though its budget was nothing like it is today? “But that meant that you really honed your news judgement. You had to be very resourceful.

To this day, we don’t have the budget of BBC News. If we send on a story, we will report that story.”

During the past two decades, many of the innovations in television news have come from Sky: 3D models for the Ian Huntley trial in 2003; nightly re-enactments of the Hutton Inquiry the same year; cameras inside the Court of Appeal a decade later; the party leaders quizzed live by young voters in February as part of “Stand Up Be Counted”. This last is a Sky campaign that encourages under-25s to vote (I expect Ryley to bend my ear about this, but he doesn’t).

The day we speak, cool, youth-­ orientated Sky News bulletins become available on the mobile app Snapchat.

However, Ryley’s aspirations for Sky are heading in the direction of interpretation: longer, 12-minute reports screened in afternoon slots; Boulton’s analysis-heavy Sky News Tonight; and now a small documentary unit he is setting up with a couple of “worldclass” producer-directors.

“This’ll sound pompous, and I don’t mean it to at all, but I am doing so with the ambition of getting Oscar nominations in the documentary category,” he says.

Ryley is a focused man and, I suspect, an austere and driven one (his hobby is cross-country cycling).

If, as this 2:15pm photograph business suggests, he is mildly and like­ ably eccentric, it also indicates that he sees life as a marathon, not a series of sprints.

There is usually nothing more throwaway than a selfie but his are collected and one day will form the pixels for a giant self-portrait in his home. Ryley, the rolling news guy, is, again, going for the big picture.

March 2015 www.rts.org.uk Television

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ike almost everyone in this room, I grew up with the BBC. As a child, it was a weekly treat to have supper watching Doctor Who and stay up late for Match of the Day on a Saturday evening.

Some may say there’s a huge amount of noisy discussion about the BBC all the time – not least in the media and at Westminster. But Charter review is on the horizon after the election. This will be a very real debate about the future size and shape of the BBC. I took this job because I believe the BBC Trust needs to be at the heart of that debate. And I believe it needs to be a proper public debate, not one conducted by a small elite.

I hope I’m no one’s idea of a cheerleader. I spent a lot of my working life competing hard against the BBC. I’m not someone to gloss over the BBC’s faults, problems or challenges.

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

BBC Trust

Rona Fairhead lays out the BBC Trust’s role in making the BBC fit for purpose Today, therefore, I want to recognise the challenges of the BBC, but I also want to put forward what we, the Trust, aim to do as we agree its strategy for the next 10 years.

And that is: to make sure that the public voice is heard; to refine – or change – the broader public purposes of the BBC as they are set out in the Charter; and to preserve the BBC’s independence, because the BBC belongs to everyone – it is not owned by the government.

Dillon Bryden

The voice of the licence payer There is much that has impressed me since arriving at the BBC – its focus on captivating its audience with outstanding creative content and developing creative talent across the UK; and the broad and deep support from the music industry and the independent production sector.

Greg Dyke once described the BBC as an 800lb gorilla. That description is no longer an accurate one: 2014 was a year of extraordinary consolidation among production companies in the UK – some of the BBC’s most important creative partners.

Super-indies became mega-indies, as three of the top four production companies were taken over by international groups that dwarf the BBC. And there’s new competition from global giants such as Google, Amazon and Apple.

As for the challenge of managing the BBC’s commercial impact, clearly, �

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WHEN IT COMES TO USING DATA TO UNDERSTAND ITS AUDIENCES, THE BBC IS A LONG WAY BEHIND THE COMPETITION

Tony Hall, BBC Director-General, with members of Creative Access, which offers paid internships

Should the BBC lead on diversity?

Q A

Should the BBC take the lead on implementing diversity strategies?

I do agree that the BBC should lead on diversity. And I mean all levels of diversity – national and regional coverage, women and ethnic groups.

The Trust’s role is to set targets and aims. This year, there was a particular objective: to increase the diversity and representation of women at the BBC. The organisation has taken some specific actions. It has done research, as well, to understand what the audience is looking for: is it just numbers or is it proper attribution and representation?

In terms of a couple of examples of what the BBC has done when challenged, when it looked at the number of women presenters on air in breakfast radio and found that it was less than 20%, the DG set a target of increasing that to at least 50% by the end of the year. By October, it was 44%…

My personal view is that the Trust is right to make this challenge… We will be looking at evidence to see if we are leading or following.

Q

Sky, Channel 4 and ITV have laid out their stall on ethnic minorities. The BBC hasn’t done so fully. What are you going to do to apply pressure to ensure that changes?

10

A

I haven’t looked at the specifics by channel. I have looked at the percentages and representation on- and off-screen. That needs to be improved…

The BBC Executive Board has come forward with proposals and plans that it is implementing, including improving the focus on developing senior leadership positions.

Having been in a commercial organisation, I know that you can say that you’re going to have diversity and then have someone come in at a relatively junior level [and find that] there is no support, there are no role models, there is no critical mass. That rarely produces a good outcome.

The BBC Executive has plans for building senior management talent.

[These involve] supporting people through pipelines of 12-month development programmes, [aimed at] a number of individuals aligned with senior executives.

There’s a creative fund to help focus on some of the ethnic minorities in programming. And a real understanding that there are targets set for a diverse population – black, Asian, minority ethnic – over the next few years.

I think you have to accept that it is something that will take some while to build. But we are definitely aiming at that target.

� the corporation is a major market intervention. While it needs to serve all licence-fee payers, it also needs to be sensitive to commercial players operating in the UK market.

However, allegations about the BBC’s impact need to be understood in context – and not overdone.

The BBC faces a real challenge on costs. Homes everywhere are scrutinising cost; never has value for money been more important.

My entire working life has been in the commercial sector, so this is an area where I believe I can bring experience to bear.

In my first four months, my observations are these: ◗ Much has been done to improve efficiency, but this is a never-ending journey and there is more to do; ◗ There remains a persistent refrain that the BBC is a difficult organisation to deal with – we’ve all heard the saying that partnership is something the BBC does to you rather than with you; ◗ The BBC needs to become more agile – simpler to work in and to work with; ◗ More needs to be done to get a commercial return for the licence-fee payers from its content – but recognising two key constraints: the complex web of rights and the intensity of global competition.

The Director-General is pursuing plans to address all these areas, by: ◗ Achieving a £1.5bn savings plan; ◗ Setting a new culture of “compete or compare”, by subjecting the BBC’s activities to competition or rigorous benchmarking; ◗ Developing a simpler, more responsive organisation; ◗ Becoming a better partner and collaborator; and ◗ Revisiting the commercial strategy to get the best long-term results for the public.

Let us remember that value for money is not about doing everything for the lowest price in the short term.

It’s about the role that audiences want

QUESTION & ANSWER Does BBC power damage the press?

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

Q

Nobody understands better than you the model of the newspaper business and how it has changed. There are more than a few newspaper owners who feel very sore because they feel they can’t get subscription businesses going due to the sheer power of the BBC. You talk about a greater dialogue and sharing. Is that the answer and will that help them build subscription news businesses?

The BBC is a major market intervention. Its online news service is a very powerful and impressive service. This is hard to compete against.

Many newspapers are trying hard to find their way with a combination of subscription and advertising.

Some of the local and regional press are particularly challenged.

In recent years, they have done a lot to give themselves greater strength. But I do think the BBC

A

Dillon Bryden

the BBC to fulfil. It’s about making choices for the long term.

The final challenge is the need for the BBC to connect – and to connect with everyone. The BBC has extraordinary reach: over 96% of the public use its services every week.

The future challenge is to continue serving all audiences in a constantly evolving world, where peoples’ interests – and their media habits – are diversifying.

Take today’s teenagers – or, as I recently heard them described, screenagers. Ofcom’s research shows that 11- to 15-year-olds spend as much time watching other things – such as short, online video clips and recorded programmes – as they do watching live TV. Young people still spend more than 11 hours a week with the BBC – miles ahead of any online video provider.

But the BBC will need to find ever more inventive ways to maintain that connection in the future. It needs to build on BBC Radio 1’s successful strategy of “listen, watch, share”.

And when it comes to using data to understand its audiences, the BBC is a long way behind the competition. This was one of the less pleasant surprises on assuming my new role, although I know that efforts are now being made to catch up, so that the BBC can offer a more personal service to licence payers.

In addressing these issues properly, I am determined that the public’s voice will be heard. One of the Trust’s core roles is to represent the licence-fee payer. To do that, we need to know what audiences themselves think in a much more granular way.

We have commissioned an initial piece of audience research to begin that process. We already know that they feel incredibly close to the programmes and services that they use every week.

The new research we’ve done shows that the public believe the core mission should not change. More than 80% supported the Reithian mission set out almost a century ago – to inform, to �

could do more, particularly to help the local and regional press, in terms of sharing relevant content and making sure that [it has] appropriate click-through, appropriate attribution and, where it is possible, that content is shared.

There are some pilots taking place in Leeds and the North East, looking at video clips, maybe sports video, that could be put into the local online newspaper sites.

That is something the BBC should continue to explore further.

I genuinely believe that you need to have a plurality of providers. The BBC has to retain editorial control over things that are BBC branded.

Accepting that, how much more open can it be?

Why the BBC needs better data

Q

You said that the BBC is behind the competition in using data to understand audiences and that there should be a more personal service. Can you say a bit more about this? Is it to do with how the BBC serves licence payers or to do with driving commerce?

It is about serving audiences…

96% of households are touched every week by the BBC. I thought there would be incredibly rich data available, relating to how people watched, when they stopped watching, which programmes they particularly liked…

I had come from a commercial world where that data was being used, yes, to drive commercial ends, but also to give a better, richer experience to the customer so that

A

they got more of what they wanted.

I was really surprised when I got to the BBC. Out of all the households in the UK, only 4 million people are registered in any meaningful way to have a personal identity… This is about creating the more personal connection.

People feel a very deep personal connection to the BBC and yet the BBC doesn’t understand all the things [that viewers and listeners] are doing.

The BBC has a lot of information, [including] a lot of overnight data about the number of people watching programmes, but [it is] that really detailed work – where you can understand what it is that drives people’s interests – that needs to be improved.

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QUESTION & ANSWER THE BBC SHOULD BE KEPT OUT OF POLITICS AS FAR AS POSSIBLE. IT’S PART OF MY JOB, AND THE TRUST’S ROLE, TO DO EVERYTHING WE CAN TO PROTECT IT

Depoliticising BBC funding

Q

The thing that urgently needs addressing is the fact that the BBC is included in the Government’s 2016/17 Public Spending Review with automatic declines already decided upon by the Treasury.

As I understand it, the BBC was never included in a spending review before 2010. How, politically, can the BBC be extracted from this process, which is in defiance of the fact that pay-TV and commercial television will continue to increase their top lines?

As I tried to make clear in my speech, the BBC isn’t just another public department.

It happens, as a matter of course, that it is included in the whole government accounts. This has led [some] to think that, because it is on the balance sheet, the BBC is now looked at in a different way.

But, when that happened [the first time], it was publicly stated that it wouldn’t change the reality of the BBC being an independent, publicly funded body. It would be separate.

One of the criticisms is that this is different. This is a service that is provided to the people of this country – yes, for great content, but also for these public purposes. I think that independence is important and the BBC should, in fact, be pulled away from the spending review.

A

12

� educate and to entertain. Indeed, “entertain” was rated highest of all, when people were given a list of words that have been associated with the BBC. And they still think it’s important for the BBC to provide an amazingly wide range of different types of content.

News and documentaries top the list of what people say is important, but they also want drama, education, comedy and children’s programmes. They want a BBC that is local, regional, national and international. They seem to want it all.

Even the genres that were rated as less important play a key role as part of a universal public service. Arts, music and religious programmes are not always majority pursuits, but they have a very clear public value. And soap operas are among the most valued programmes for millions of viewers every week. They have an important place at the heart of the BBC’s schedules.

The current Charter sets purposes that are about: promoting democracy, learning, and creativity; reflecting the nation and regions, as well as enhancing the reputation of the UK internationally; and playing a role in technological development.

Our research asked people what they thought the most important objectives were for the BBC in the future. We wanted to use that question to test the relative importance that they attached to the current public purposes.

For the most part, there was positive endorsement of these purposes. There was near universal support for high-­ quality, impartial news.

I believe we can do more to clarify the

BBC’s future role in education. And this is an area where the Trust will want to do more research, to understand what the public think that role should be.

The moves towards greater devolution – whether in Scotland, following the referendum, or in areas such as Greater Manchester – are all part of the changing context that the BBC needs to reflect.

But, alongside the centrifugal force of devolution, the centripetal force still exists. There are many occasions – take the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games or The Great British Bake Off – when I have felt the buzz of truly nationwide excitement.

While audiences have different views about the best and worst programmes, there is a remarkable consensus about one thing: the vital importance of impartiality and independence.

In our survey, there was very little support for any government intervention in the BBC. People see a need for independent scrutiny and regulation, but they prefer this to be done by a separate body representing licence-fee payers, not by government or MPs. Politicians need to understand that strength of feeling about independence.

The BBC doesn’t belong to the state. It lives and thrives outside Westminster in millions of homes around the country.

The process and outcome of Charter review need to reflect that reality. The BBC should be kept out of politics as far as possible. It’s part of my job, and the Trust’s role, to do everything we can to protect it.

There are some people who believe the BBC should no longer exist. There

STOP PRESS Overhaul of BBC governance

This is an edited version of a speech, ‘Confident and connected – a BBC fit for the future’, given by Rona Fairhead, Chair of the BBC Trust, to the RTS at the British Museum on 3 February. The full speech can be read at: www rts.org.uk. The evening was chaired by RTS President Sir Peter Bazalgette and produced by Sue Robertson.

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

Dillon Bryden

are some who believe the BBC has to change. And there are some who want the BBC to fulfil all the priorities it has today.

Some have suggested that the BBC should be much smaller – but let’s be clear that a much smaller BBC would not be the BBC as we know it.

It wouldn’t have the appeal to broad audiences, it wouldn’t have the firepower to create great international journalism or world-beating drama or achieve its public purposes: I see no public appetite for that.

Indeed, we know from our regular tracking research that the majority of people see an annual licence fee of £145.50 as value for money.

In Charter review, we want to test that in more depth, so that we start the negotiation from an informed position.

Before we arrive at any decisions, we should all have a much better understanding of the trade-offs that will have to be made, what audiences expect of the BBC and what they are willing to pay.

There is a lot to be confident about.

But all the noise around the BBC can be a distraction. It is my job to push the BBC to be confident and connected with its audience in everything that it does.

At the Oxford Media Convention on 4 March, Rona Fairhead called, in effect, for the BBC Trust to be abolished following Charter review.

She said that a lack of clarity over governance had led to some of the financial and editorial management failures of recent years.

These included the handling of the Jimmy Savile scandal, the hefty pay-offs to departing BBC executives and the £100m Digital Media Initiative fiasco.

Clearer separation between executive and governance functions should avoid ‘the possibility of vagueness or uncertainty about who will be held responsible for what, when the chips are down’.

Fairhead said: ‘At a minimum, we would want to propose some reform of the current model.

‘To keep the Trust as part of the BBC but to be much more specific, in any future Charter, that its responsibilities were focused more clearly on regulation and accountability, with strategy and oversight left to the Executive Board.

‘But the cleanest form of separation would be to transfer the Trust’s responsibilities for regulation and accountability to an external regulator.

‘And that’s an approach we want to explore further. I think it’s the front-runner.’

This model would involve a stronger unitary board, with an independent chair and a majority of nonexecutive directors. They would have sole responsibility for running the BBC and its corporate governance.

Fairhead explained: ‘They would have their own responsibilities to listen and respond to their most important stakeholder – the British public. And the non-executives would need to have access to independent research and advice.’

She added: ‘This model needs to be tested thoroughly. It does provide maximum clarity about who is accountable. But, for it to work, the regulator would need to have fairly strong powers and levers.’

13

Pay-TV

Kate Bulkley profiles the top trio at BT who are tweaking Sky’s tail and leading the telco’s TV strategy

John Petter

Delia Bushell

BT TV’s power W

hen the auction for Premier League football rights reached its climax last month a tremor passed through the UK television business, not to mention the City.

But, for the BT bidding team, the breakdown of the £5.136bn figure for the 2016-19 matches produced a stunned silence. BT had paid a little less than £1bn for two of the TV packages; its rival, Sky, had stumped up a staggering £4.2bn for five packages of rights.

Sky had secured more games – 126 games per season versus 42 for BT – but at a spectacular cost: £11.05m per game; an overall increase of 85% from the last auction in 2012. BT Sport’s new package will cost £7.6m per game, an 18% increase per match and an overall rise of 30% for Premier League coverage.

14

The following day, BT’s shares rose while Sky’s dipped. In the Premier League’s blind bidding system, BT Sport had gambled and won.

It was quite an initiation for BT Sport’s trio of talent– BT Group CEO Gavin Patterson, head of BT Consumer John Petter and Managing Director of BT TV and BT Sport Delia Bushell. This was the first time the top team overseeing BT’s TV and broadband push had worked on the auction together.

Coming on the heels of BT’s £12.5bn acquisition of UK mobile operator EE, it had been a spectacular few weeks.

Working with the Chief Finance Officer of BT Group and the Finance and Strategy Director of BT Consumer, Patterson, Petter and Bushell had decided to take a “disciplined approach” to the Premier League bid.

Having already secured exclusive rights to Champions League and

Europa League football, they believed that BT had “optionality” as to what to go for this time around, says Bushell.

“We’ve always taken on a position as a price challenger to make premium UK sport more accessible to fans again.

We are quite pleased with the outcome,” she adds, with a broadening smile.

“And we’ve all been quite surprised by just how much Sky has bid.”

When BT burst on to the TV sport scene four years ago, the scepticism was evident. It was splashing billions on rights, high-tech studios and bigname presenters.

The naysayers wondered if a phone company could offer a credible TV sports package and, crucially, succeed against Sky. The latter had already defeated challenges from ITV Digital, Setanta and ESPN. At the time of the BT Sport launch, Patterson, then head of BT Consumer,

All pictures: BT Group

Gavin Patterson

team led a charm offensive directed at journalists, analysts and TV viewers.

He promised that his new channel would not only bring sport “back to the British public”, but would also have a warmer and more inclusive approach than Sky’s “cold” presentational style.

The heavily marketed launch – offering premium sport “free” to BT broadband subscribers – changed BT’s fortunes. It reversed what had been a decade-long losing battle against Sky for broadband customers. And in the latest quarter of this fiscal year, 45,000 TV customers were added, compared with 21,000 in the same quarter in 2012.

Top-line growth had been flat prior to BT Sport’s arrival, but, in the most recent quarter, revenue grew by 7%.

Given the competitive nature of the UK’s TV and broadband market, this represents an impressive turnaround.

When BT Sport made its debut,

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

Bushell was in Italy working for Sky Italia as Chief Commercial Officer.

She had flown back to Britain the first weekend following the launch to be confronted by BT Sport’s marketing push. “I remember seeing all the posters and thinking that this was a big step change for BT,” she recalls.

Bushell, 42, joined BT eight months ago to run both the TV and sports businesses. Previously, they had been run separately.

She had worked at Sky for 14 years across both the channels and the broadband and telephony businesses. The majority of her time at the satellite broadcaster was spent in the UK, but she was based in Ireland for two years as Managing Director of Sky Ireland and spent almost three years at Sky Italia.

Some in the TV business claim that Bushell knows less about the content side of the business than the commercial side. These critics complain that BT still lacks a “content champion”.

But Bushell is quick to highlight her content credentials.

Early on in her Sky career, she worked across Sky’s joint-venture businesses and channels. She turned Sky Travel into a profitable business, as well as launching Sky Freeview channels Sky News, Sky Travel and Sky Sports News.

Bushell then ran commercial affairs for Dawn Airey, at that time, the head of channels and services.

Bushell says she is a lover of high-­ quality drama and name checks Wolf Hall, The Fall and The Honourable Woman.

Under her leadership, Sky’s broadband business grew from a standing start to more than 3 million subscribers.

Bushell met her husband, Griff Parry, when they were management consultants at Arthur D Little. Both then worked at Sky for several years, but in very different roles. Parry was at Sky for more than a decade and subsequently launched a games development startup while Bushell was working at Sky Italia and the couple and their three daughters lived in Milan.

Bushell smiles when she admits she is watching more sport on TV – much to the delight of Parry – but she is no sport ingénue. She has been a José Mourinho fan since her early years at Sky and even has his autograph.

On BT’s rivalry with Sky, she says: “Sky is defending a very high consumer price point on TV. It needs to invest quite heavily to defend that, while we at BT have a very different set of choices.

“At the moment, you’re seeing ­ reeview upgraders or pay-TV down-­ F spinners saying, ‘I don’t really spend all that much time watching TV. I am spending a lot of time online, on YouTube and browsing the web, so how much do I want to be paying for TV?’” Bushell’s nous about how to bundle services attractively should complement the strengths of her bosses, ­Petter, 44, and Patterson, 47.

The latter pair have very different personal styles: Patterson is charismatic and outgoing; Petter, who has a mild speech impediment, is cerebral, with a dry wit.

But both men have had similar career paths. Each worked at Proctor & Gamble, a company well known for training its executives in strategic thinking. They were also colleagues at Telewest, the UK cable TV company destined to be subsumed into Virgin Media.

Virgin gave them valuable experience in bundling telecommunications and TV services in competition with bigger rivals.

“They learned their craft of competing with Sky in the trenches of Telewest.

That informs their knowledge of their enemy,” says one senior TV executive, who knows them well. “They utterly blindsided Sky in this last auction.

“This is because they have confidence and conviction in what they are doing,” adds the source.

Petter’s taste in TV runs to “quirky, independent film” (he is a fan of BT TV’s Curzon cinema channel) and watching his team, West Ham. Petter and Bushell are both Oxford history graduates. At a recent meeting they were in their comfort zone, comparing notes about how Thomas Cromwell was portrayed by Mark Rylance in Wolf Hall.

Petter’s office on the seventh floor of BT Centre is dominated by a mural littered with symbols representing football and rugby clubs.

The BT marketing department created the mural for a customer competition, but Petter seems to appreciate its intricate and brain-teasing nature.

“It’s a bit of a test, actually,” he quips, subtly putting his guest on edge.

So how does the head of all BT’s consumer services regard business problems such as competing with Sky? “Our approach to all of this is governed by strict economic rules, vigorous pre-market testing and a very rational attitude to the whole study of how to get this right,” he says.�

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BT’S TOP-LINE GROWTH HAD BEEN FLAT PRIOR TO BT SPORT’S ARRIVAL… IN THE MOST RECENT QUARTER, REVENUE GREW BY 7%

16

� Bushell and Petter are keen to boost the profile of BT TV beyond premium sport. BT recently added Netflix to its offer; Sky Sport 1 and 2 are part of the BT TV line-up, and BT customers can now watch on their portable devices.

More interactive and value-added capabilities that leverage BT’s fibre broadband network – such as picking which camera angles to follow – will be added from this summer.

BT TV will “enhance its entertainment offer”, says Bushell, but she declines to be drawn on whether this means more third-party channels and services, such as Amazon Prime – or commissioning exclusive content and creating bespoke services.

“Having the right range of entertainment and documentary channels in the portfolio is key to future growth,” she says, diplomatically.

“We are open to carrying the Sky channels and open to investing ourselves, but no decision has been made that we can communicate.”

Patterson, who read chemical engineering at Cambridge, has had a stellar rise at BT over the past 10 years. He was promoted from Managing Director of the company’s consumer unit to CEO of BT Retail.

There, he led the drive to join the YouView consortium as a founder member and orchestrated the original £2bn football broadcasting challenge to Sky and the launch of BT Sport.

In September 2013, after then-CEO Ian Livingstone left BT to join the Government, he was handed the top job of BT CEO. Often hailed for his leading-man

BT

BT Sport presenter Jake Humphrey

good looks, Patterson, a passionate Liverpool FC fan, is reckoned by his peers to be a brilliant front man and a very adroit operator.

With four children under the age of 15, he is a committed family man.

Patterson clearly sees the situation between BT and Sky as a strike back against Sky’s canny move nearly 10 years ago to start offering free broadband to its TV customers.

“Since we launched BT Sport, just over a year ago, 25,000 commercial premises have signed up, with one in three pubs showing it, and that’s more than Sky,” Patterson told analysts at the most recent financial results call. “Viewing figures have also been encouraging, with our Premier League viewing up 17% year-onyear.”

Patterson, Petter and Bushell are an experienced top team that clearly has Sky in its sights.

BT has the financial firepower (its market capitalisation is £37bn, compared with Sky’s £16.5bn) and the strategic confidence to make an even bigger impact on how TV is bundled and sold in the UK. Gary Lineker is rumoured to be joining BT Sport.

Bushell will be looking closely at how to leverage BT’s TV assets across the 24 million EE mobile phone customers it recently acquired.

“Ultimately, these are the three top people who are dealing with the Murdoch machine that is Sky,” says one senior TV executive. “The fact that they are doing so on their own terms is really powerful and interesting to watch.”

March 2015 www.rts.org.uk Television

OUR FRIEND IN THE

NORTH

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

Advances in sexual equality in broadcasting are superficial, suggests Barbara Govan

Paul Hampartsoumian

W

hat are the prospects in 2015 for a young person entering the world of broadcast journalism? The possibility of promotion, prizes, pensions even, look pretty encouraging.

That is, if you are a man. But, for women – and they now form the majority of people joining the industry – there has been an embarrassing lack of progress towards equality. Men still dominate, especially at the top.

According to the House of Lords report, “Women in news and current affairs broadcasting”, published in January, there have been some advances.

The numbers of female staff at the BBC, ITN and ITV are edging towards the halfway mark. But you have to drill down only a little to see that many of these apparent advances are superficial and not being sustained.

Even the recent RTS Television Journalism Awards were described by The Guardian as “a surprisingly blokeish affair” and a “march of the penguin suits”, due to the lack of women being recognised and rewarded.

The Lords report concludes: “We were surprised and disappointed at how much further broadcasters, Ofcom and the government have to go to achieve genuine gender balance.”

Looking back at the Northern, smoke-fugged 1980s newsrooms I started in, there was a bare handful of women over 40. In those Life on Mars days, there were very many colleagues who fitted the description “ugly, grizzly, fat, old and peculiar”.

This was how presenter Miriam O’Reilly described the career longevity and latitude still afforded to men and denied to women.

She was a witness to the Lords committee and, so far, the only woman to win an age discrimination case against a UK broadcaster.

This, in itself, is strange, considering that inequality is heightened the older a woman gets. Young women can compete on an equal footing until they start a family.

Then they come unstuck, because it’s still mainly women who have the caring responsibilities.

This problem is not unique to broadcasting. Other sectors are equally bad. Science, engineering, technology and medicine call it the “leaky pipeline”. Huge numbers of talented, well-qualified and ambitious women enter the knowledge supply line but few make it to senior and leadership positions.

Expert women on screen are missing, too. According to the report, newsrooms are too busy to find expert women to interview.

That is why, in a democracy, we can still end up on Question Time with 72% of contributors being men while 51% of the population is female.

I’ve recently been working with hundreds of women in science, from graduates to professors. There is no shortage of women experts.

They are a brilliant, untapped and eager resource. Tip to newsroom: contact your local university and you will be rewarded with great stories and, yes, female talent.

What are universities doing about their lack of senior women? They have put money and compulsion into the mix. No evidence of promotion of, or investment in, women? Then no government money.

The Lords report doesn’t rule out quotas for broadcasting if real progress isn’t made soon. However, I think they already exist. With three male reporters for every one woman, and men comprising 82% of presenters aged over 50, men must already be on a quota system, given all the talented women who must have been overlooked to give them those jobs.

Perhaps we’ll only know that we have equality when newsrooms and TV screens have an even share of talented and experienced men and women who are also “ugly, grizzly, fat, old and peculiar”.

I definitely fit at least one of those descriptions, but I’m not waiting by the phone.

Barbara Govan is co-owner of Leedsbased Screenhouse Productions and Screenhouse Training, which delivers communication workshops to scientists and academics around the UK.

17

Engineering a future for kids at the BBC

H

ow did a trained civil engineer come to be appointed Director of BBC Children’s? That is the question many people asked when BBC England Chief Operating Officer Alice Webb was named in January as the successor to Joe Godwin.

The role involves “being responsible for the overall direction and management of all the BBC’s services for children”. This includes CBBC and its stable mate for viewers under six, CBeebies, plus their websites and apps.

BBC Children’s spends around £94m a year, about £80m of which goes on original content.

But it faces a number of challenges, not least the pressure to make savings and compete with the 30 or so rival kids’ channels and the online world.

The BBC announced late last year that Godwin was moving to become

18

Children’s TV

Alice Webb has never made a kids’ show – yet her job is to preserve the BBC’s children’s services, reports Tara Conlan the new Director of the BBC Academy and BBC Birmingham.

The director of children’s role was covered by Kay Benbow, the respected head of CBeebies.

Some thought Benbow, or her equally admired colleague, CBBC Channel ­Controller Cheryl Taylor, might get the job. Or someone, like Godwin, with a programme-making background.

Webb is not a programme maker.

She worked at PA Consulting (those she advised included the Cabinet Office) before she joined the BBC a decade ago.

However, as the woman responsible for the operational infrastructure of BBC North, she has tons of experience in dealing with change and big projects.

These include moving BBC departments, such as Children’s, Learning and parts of Sport and 5 Live, from London to Salford.

As Children’s Media Foundation Director Greg Childs points out, this is a “very, very tricky time” for children’s public-service programming.

This is especially true for the BBC in the run-up to charter renewal and negotiations over a new licence-fee deal. Webb’s strategic and political experience might be just what BBC Children’s needs at this point.

Webb’s acumen, combined with Benbow and Taylor’s creativity, make

BBC

ONE OF CBBC’S BIGGEST PROBLEMS IS THE 10-PLUS AUDIENCE, WHICH IS WATCHING VIDEO ON MOBILES, YOUTUBE, TABLETS OR SMART TVS

for a “good team” at BBC Children’s, reckons Childs.

So what are the specific challenges facing Webb? According to the BBC Trust’s last review of children’s services, at the end of 2013, “CBeebies and CBBC are the most watched children’s channels in the UK for their respective target audiences.”

However, the report added, over the next couple of years, “the key performance challenge for BBC Children’s is to maintain the reach and impact of both CBeebies and CBBC in an environment in which older children’s consumption of media, in particular, is increasingly fragmented and where there is more choice than ever before.”

The Trust also said: “Like all other BBC services, BBC Children’s needs to make financial savings and operate on a reduced budget. We expect this to be achieved with minimal impact on the audiences of CBeebies and CBBC.”

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

In addition, following the decision to remove dedicated children’s programming from BBC One and BBC Two, Webb’s department must work with the rest of the BBC to “promote and develop content for children”.

So, quite a lot on Webb’s plate, then.

Former BBC Chief Operating Officer Caroline Thomson, who has worked with Webb, says she is well placed to tackle most of these challenges.

“She trained as a civil engineer, so is very unusual in BBC terms. She was just brilliant,” Thomson recalls. “She had a real grasp of how to project manage things, thanks to her engineering background.

“She was also very nice and personable. She worked well downwards as well as upwards, and combined the civil engineering grasp of structure and detail with a great level of EQ. “I’ve got a lot of time for her. I always thought she was potential BBC Chief Operating Officer material.”

Webb joined the corporation from PA to work as a strategist with Peter Salmon, then head of BBC Vision. In 2009, she moved with Salmon, who described her as “a rising star”, to BBC North, where she became Project Director.

The pair worked well together. Webb is credited with much of the practical delivery of Salford.

One source who had dealings with her at the time says Webb was good at understanding the politics of the BBC. Another says she has “huge energy, she is good fun”.

Webb needed that energy: she says that BBC North has been the biggest challenge of her career so far. “As ­Programme Director, and then as Chief Operating Officer of BBC North,” says Webb, “I looked after everything from construction of the new buildings to fitting out all the state-of-the-art technology, to moving 850 BBC staff and their families to the north of England – not to mention forming the new creative and business model for BBC North.”

Did she ever think, during her engineering training (she graduated in 1995 from Liverpool University with a Masters), that one day she would end up running something like BBC Children’s?

“No – it seems a long time ago that I was working on large building sites and constructing tunnels… and I never imagined I’d work in the media, let alone head up BBC Children’s.

“Despite this apparent lateral career move, civil engineering provided a brilliant grounding in many things that

have stood me in good stead through my whole career: things such as problem solving, keeping sight of the bigger picture and mobilising large teams. All really useful things to learn early.”

Having young children can’t help but give Webb an understanding of the audience. “They love BBC programmes, so they think it’s pretty cool,” she says.

“Not to mention that it’s much easier to explain that mum is head of BBC Children’s than [describe] my last job!”

According to colleagues, Webb has “always been very devoted to Salford”; she moved her family there in 2011.

Webb is loathe to discuss plans for her department, as she has been in post only since the end of February. “My job – along with Peter Salmon – was to make [BBC North] a place where people can do their very best creative work, where they can be world beating with their creative ambition and the implementation of those ideas. Much as I intend to do with BBC Children’s.”

“One of CBBC’s biggest problems is the 10-plus, audience, which is watching video on mobiles, YouTube, tablets or smart TVs,” worries Childs.

The channel has been told that it must broadcast for two hours longer each day after BBC Three becomes an online-only service. The first hour will cater mostly for the six- to nine-yearold audience and the second hour will target 10- to 12-year-olds.

The Children’s Media Foundation has made a submission to the BBC Trust that “the corporation can’t do that – have 15% more airtime, without additional money. CBBC and CBeebies are spread very thinly,” says Childs.

“Senior management needs to think of children as a primary part of the audience. They are… extremely fast adopters of new trends… and they need great, educational, fun and advertising-­free public service broadcasting.”

“The long-term fear is that the audience will desert to on-demand,” says Childs. Even though the BBC’s kids’ channels are on YouTube, it is unclear how they will cope with the platform’s launch of a new app, YouTube Kids.

Webb’s favourite shows from her childhood are almost “too numerous to list”, she says, but they include The Really Wild Show, Blue Peter, Grange Hill, Take Hart, Rentaghost and Going Live! – all BBC programmes.

Part of her mission is to ensure that future generations look back equally fondly on BBC Children’s programmes in the years to come.

19

A lot to laugh about

Stella

‘T

he thing about comedy is that everybody is a comedy expert,” says Phil Clarke, Head of Comedy at Channel 4.

“Everyone knows what makes them laugh.”

With comedies to be found everywhere, from the big broadcasters to YouTube and pay-television, the British consumer has never had it so good.

“Comedy is experiencing a huge growth spurt, not only on TV but in live comedy, where stand-up and live shows have exploded over the past few years,” says Shane Allen, Controller of Comedy Commissioning at the BBC. While the BBC and, latterly, Channel 4 have been the driving force behind some of Britain’s classic series, from Porridge to Peep Show, other broadcasters are committing time and money to tickle the nation’s funny bone.

ITV’s comedy output has sometimes been greeted with derision – “Why can’t ITV make decent sitcoms?” asked

20

The Guardian back in 2007 – but the broadcaster is looking to build on the success of its soaps and dramas.

“We have been growing our slate quite considerably in the past couple of years,” says Saskia Schuster, who joined ITV as Comedy Commissioning Editor from Sky last year. “It takes a while, with scripted comedy, for it to translate to what we see on screen.”

Despite some early sneering from critics, ITV’s flagship sitcom Benidorm has been commissioned for an eighth series, which will start filming later this year. “It’s got such a joyful heart,” says Schuster. “Cynical comedies aren’t going to play well on ITV.” UKTV is also trying to make a splash in the genre. Although Gold has built its brand around collecting classic shows, from The Vicar of Dibley to the exclusive broadcast of Monty Python Live (Mostly), the channel, along with its free sibling Dave, is investing in original scripted comedy.

A portion of UKTV’s £125m-a-year

programme budget is being used for five new scripted comedy shows on Gold for 2015.

“It might sound foolish,” admits Richard Watsham, Director of Commissioning at UKTV. “Gold is filled with some of the best British comedy there’s ever been, so for us to try and create our own, in some ways, seems utter madness.

“But, at the same time, we need to offer our audiences new things.”

Watsham says that showing UKTV’s own comedies on Dave and Gold will help the network compete with the bigger broadcasters for quality content: “It’s about becoming more than a manager of other people’s creations.”

Meanwhile, Sky has also been strengthening its comedy output, ­following the appointment of Lucy Lumsden as Head of Comedy. “When I arrived just over five years ago, I guess the only things we had… were The Simpsons and… Modern Family,” she says.

Lumsden moved quickly to develop

Sky

With more outlets than ever, comedy production has mushroomed.

Pippa Shawley looks at what is making the commissioners chuckle

Miranda a tone for Sky’s comedy output, coining the phrase “smart mainstream”, based on the idea that, although Modern Family has a broad, family appeal, it doesn’t shy away from the less conventional topics of adoption and gay marriage.

With so many platforms now carrying comedy, there is a constant need to nurture new talent in the genre.

The BBC, which has a long history of fostering young talent, encourages new writers in a number of ways. The joint BBC Three and iPlayer initiative Comedy Feeds encourages both new writers and new performers to get their foot in the door at the BBC. The broadcaster’s investment seems to be paying off: six of the one-off feeds have now been developed as series.

“It’s the crucial place to grow new talent and find the stars of tomorrow,” says Allen. But he also believes that radio is still a “vital bloodline for new talent”, along with BBC Writersroom.

“There are plenty of ins and a very clear career ladder.”

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

BBC

LOTS OF OTHER GENRES ARE EPHEMERAL AND DISPOSABLE, BUT NOT COMEDY

As with Comedy Feeds, Channel 4’s Comedy Blaps are online-exclusive shorts that offer new writers the chance to try out ideas and, potentially, be commissioned for a full series. They are “pilots for pilots”, as Clarke puts it.

Upcoming series Chewing Gum, written by Michaela Coel and based on her play Chewing Gum Dreams, started off as a Blap “and it was so good, it is now an E4 series”, says Clarke.

Outside of Clarke’s remit, Channel 4’s Shorts, which are overseen by the station’s online team, also offer writers the chance to do something a bit different. Unlike Comedy Blaps, however, they are not so much a route into television, as symbolic of the tendency for the new generation of comedy writers to be digital natives.

“It’s really to harvest people who live their creative life online,” Clarke explains. “I think it’s a brilliant thing because there’s a whole generation of people doing very funny things online, with no ambition to go into television.”

Elsewhere, broadcasters’ investment in talent has gravitated towards alreadyestablished writers and producers. “Sky has helped sustain the general growth of the industry, but it tends towards established talent,” says Allen.

Lumsden admits that there was a “healthy sense of urgency” when it came to commissioning Sky’s first clutch of comedy series. This meant that it didn’t order many pilots; instead, it commissioned whole runs. Shows such as Stella and Moone Boy have now run for several series and are firm favourites on Sky. Broadcasters on all sides have come under fire for giving too much airtime to middle-class sitcoms, but commissioners insist that viewers should start to notice a more diverse output in the coming year.

Channel 4’s recent 360° Diversity Charter has enshrined the need for its output to reflect a wider cross section of society. “It was genuinely shocking when Lenny Henry pointed out that the industry has actually, in terms of diversity, gone backwards,” says Clarke.

Coel’s upcoming Chewing Gum will go some way towards redressing the white, middle-class dominance of television comedy.

“She’s a terrific young, black, female writer,” says Clarke. Chewing Gum “is all about growing up on a south London estate, [it’s] very funny, very touching”.

Schuster is on the hunt for more comedies that reflect the world we live in: “I think comedy, as much as anything else, is about holding up a mirror to the world and giving a different view of our lives.”

Reflecting the diversity of British society is something the BBC’s upcoming slate is intended to address. BBC Two’s Boy Meets Girl, discovered through a BBC Writersroom and Trans Comedy talent search, will be the first sitcom to focus on transgender experience.

Meanwhile, The Javone Prince Show, from the star of E4’s PhoneShop, will be the first black sketch show in, as Allen points out, “way too long”.

For Allen, commissioning a diverse range of comedy is about more than ticking boxes: “Our shows have to look like the Britain we live in… Deep down, we want to have brilliant comedies that transcend being put in the boxes of class, age, sex, whatever, and have shows that unite people in the way the classics always have – be it Porridge, The Good Life or Only Fools and Horses.”

While much has been said about �

21

Channel 4

Chewing Gum � the success of Miranda (written, produced and directed by women), and the impact it has had for women, it is indicative of the wave of women working on successful comedies across the industry.

“When I first started, about 3,000 years ago, comedy was a male preserve,” remembers Clarke. “Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen women find their comic voice and being allowed a comic voice.”

According to Allen, the “Miranda effect” and the work of French and Saunders, Catherine Tate and Ruth Jones, among others, have given more women the confidence to pitch comedies to the BBC. “The huge success of Miranda should make any aspiring female talent feel it is within their grasp to be top of the comedy tree and not have their originality and voice diluted.”

Ruth Jones’ Stella has just returned to Sky 1 for a fourth series. She is developing another project for the BBC, while Caitlin Moran’s much-­anticipated Raised by Wolves will hit Channel 4 later this year. Emma Kennedy’s new series, based on her working-class upbringing, will air on the BBC in the spring.

Though the broadcasters are keeping many of their plans for the general election under wraps, the event will provide an important boost to satirical programming, which has dwindled in recent years.

ITV has commissioned Newzoids, a six-part impressions show with puppets voiced by a cast that includes Jon Culshaw and Debra Stephenson.

Charlie Brooker is working on a special Election Wipe for the BBC, 22

which is also developing “something special” with Rory Bremner.

The future of BBC comedy will be shaped, to some extent, by the BBC Trust’s decision on whether BBC Three should be moved online.

If BBC Three does go off air, the iPlayer-exclusive series – such as Funny Valentines, featuring shorts by Bill Bailey and Sara Pascoe – hint at the potential for the broadcaster’s on-demand content.

“It’s a burgeoning area because it can accommodate ideas that may only be two minutes long… or things such as animation that might struggle to launch on linear TV,” says Allen.

“As with any creative endeavour, what starts out as left-field and ahead of the curve can sometimes evolve and become more mainstream.”

Despite the continuing obsession with classic sitcoms such as Only Fools and Horses and Steptoe and Son, there is a feeling in the industry that British comedy is experiencing a renaissance.

“I firmly believe we’re living in it,” says Allen. He points to Miranda, Outnumbered and Mrs Brown’s Boys as the kind of programmes that viewers will watch for decades to come. “It’s brilliant and mostly unique to comedy – families don’t sit down to watch decades-old documentaries, or even dramas. Lots of other genres are ephemeral and disposable, but not comedy.”

While it’s unlikely that the size of today’s sitcom audiences will ever reach the giddy heights of some of Britain’s best-loved older shows, there have never been so many opportunities to make or watch comedy.

[ONLINE] IS THE CRUCIAL PLACE TO GROW NEW TALENT AND FIND THE STARS OF TOMORROW

March 2015 www.rts.org.uk Television

The BBC: don’t take it for granted

Lord Dobbs argues that, in an uncertain world, we need the BBC more than ever, says Steve Clarke

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

RTS Wheldon Lecture

Jim Pascoe

L

ord Dobbs, creator of the House of Cards series of novels, has mounted a passionate defence of the BBC as a global public service operator that is “arguably, the most important form of foreign aid we provide”.

Delivering this year’s RTS Huw Wheldon Memorial Lecture, Lord Dobbs said that, in an era of VoD and social media, “public service broadcasting is challenged on all sides”.

“New technologies and new platforms, the changing ownership of channels and production houses – and, of course, an endless battle with its budget” – were all threatening PSB. “There will be fierce and sometimes furious arguments about the BBC’s funding” following the general election, Dobbs predicted.

He continued: “The House of ­Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee has just delivered pretty dramatic advice on how it should change – or be changed. We can’t take any of the present rules for granted.”

Netflix’s reinvention of House of Cards, originally a BBC drama, had given Dobbs first-hand experience of how content is made in the digital age.

“Netflix rebuilt House of Cards – commissioned it without any pilot, for two full seasons, 26 episodes, sight unseen, trusting in the strength of the concept and the skills of Kevin Spacey and David Fincher,” he said.

“The risk was awesome but, then, so was the potential. And the need.

Just a few years earlier, Netflix had been in the tired old business of renting out videos. It seemed likely to be

Michael Dobbs

I DON’T KNOW ANY BBC EXECUTIVE WHO HAS YET PUT IN A CLAIM FOR A DUCK HOUSE

another victim of our changing world.

Today, it’s a world beater, and I’m left regretting that I didn’t take my payment in Netflix stock.”

In this world of digital disruption, the BBC has often been its own worst enemy, Dobbs argued: “There’s a sense among many opinion formers that a BBC that was set up to be the custodian of all that is best in British broadcasting has, too often in recent years, slipped into both organisational and intellectual arrogance. The criticism is, in many instances, well founded.”

Politicians, too, had been guilty of betraying public trust. He said: “For every BBC screw-up, such as the Digital Media Initiative and the sale of Lonely Planet, Westminster has its own IT catastrophes, its organisational incompetences and, not least of all, its stupendously wasteful wars.

“We politicians, too, have our expenses fiascos – and I don’t know any BBC executive who has yet put in a claim for a duck house.

“And, as far as Savile is concerned, it would be a courageous politician who didn’t think a new Westminster sex scandal was brewing.”

Dobbs suggested, “The BBC is a little like the monarch: impossible to measure how much she earns for the country, but we know it’s immense.”

He said the BBC had “an impact in every corner of the globe. It is one of the prime weapon systems in our arsenal of soft power, which will grow increasingly important in the years of uncertainty that lie ahead”.

The World Service was “arguably the most important form of foreign aid we provide” (see article on page 30).

But Dobbs cautioned: “That doesn’t mean giving the BBC a blank cheque, or refraining from giving it a good kicking when it deserves it, but it does mean making sure that it has the opportunity, and the encouragement, to meet its ambition of doubling its global audience to half a billion people in the next seven years.

“What a difference that could make.

A vibrant system of public service broadcasting that is part of our future, not just a glorious past. If we didn’t have the BBC, how much would we be willing to pay to invent it?”

The full text of the RTS Huw Wheldon Memorial Lecture, ‘Public service broadcasting: a house of cards?’ by Michael Dobbs, Lord Dobbs of Wylye, is available on the RTS website.

23

Brand new shows – opportunity knocks

A

dvertiser-funded TV shows are as old as the medium itself. It’s easy to forget that the term soap opera was originally coined to describe radio serials sponsored in the US by Procter & Gamble. In the 1950s and 1960s, many of the first televised soaps were paid for and produced by the company, too.

“There is nothing new about advertisers making programmes,” stressed Campaign Editor-in-Chief Claire Beale at the start of a packed RTS early-­ evening event on advertiser-funded shows, “No longer only buying eyeballs: why advertisers want to make programmes”.

She proved her point by playing two clips first shown around half a century ago, both from across the Atlantic. The

24

Advertiser-funded shows

Advertisers are showing new interest in financing content, reports Steve Clarke audience watched incredulously as The Flintstones plugged cigarettes and 1960s Beatles clones The Monkees hyped a well-known breakfast cereal. Those were the days – or maybe not.

In the 21st century, advertiser-­ funded programming (AFP) is a lot more sophisticated, especially in the UK, noted Beale, the event’s chair.

Crucially, there is an expectation that editorial and advertising will be kept

at arm’s length from one another. The row over The Daily Telegraph’s relationship with HSBC and its reporting – or lack of it – of dubious practices at the bank’s Swiss offshoot was a reminder of how the public needs to be vigilant about advertisers influencing editorial content.

During the past decade, AFP’s fortunes have waxed and waned on British TV, depending on commercial imperatives and the regulatory climate.

As Beale pointed out, continued fragmentation and the spread of online video were enticing brands to turn once again to AFP. One broadcaster that looks to be ahead of the curve in nurturing and encouraging AFP is UKTV. The company’s Director of Commercial Partnerships, Sally Quick, revealed that 26% of UKTV’s schedules across 11 channel

Richard Kendal

ARE BRANDS TRYING TO COERCE PROGRAMMEMAKERS AND BROADCASTERS TO CHANGE THEIR PROGRAMMES INTO ADVERTS? YES, OF COURSE, THEY ARE

brands contained shows financed directly by advertisers.

“We had 26 commissions last year and six of them were AFP,” she said.

“One was a co-pro with Waitrose.”

Quick said that she “sat within” UKTV’s commissioning team. This was a big advantage in getting AFP greenlit. She explained that there were three different routes by which AFP arrived on air at UKTV. “[First], we take out ideas we want to commission that we think have got a commercial opportunity and look for co-funding partners,” said Quick. A good example of that was John Torode’s Australia, co-funded by Tourism Australia via the media agency Drum. It was the highest-rated show on Good Food last year.

“Other ideas we create from scratch.

Brands come to us with a brief on a content idea. We then come up with a concept and pitch it to producers and work it up to broadcast with the brand,” said Quick.

Find My Past, made by Lion Television for Yesterday and winner of a Broadcast Digital Award, was funded by FindMyPast.com and followed this route to the small screen.

Quick continued: “We also take and hone and develop ideas that a brand has already invested in. We’re now in the eighth year of our partnership with

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

Red Bull.” The relationship has led to Red Bull X-Fighters, Red Bull Cliff Diving and Red Bull Soapbox Race Live, all shown on Dave.

Channel 4 has taken a more softly, softly approach to AFP, explained Jon Lewis, Head of Digital and Partnership Innovation at the broadcaster.

“It’s still a relatively nascent market at Channel 4… There’s a real opportunity,” he said. “The key thing is that it only works when you’ve got the commercial and creative teams aligned…

“It’s important to identify areas in the schedule. I spent a lot of time at Channel 4 trying to create ad-funded shows in areas of the schedule that are either in big demand or in big stress.

“Creating AFP in peak is challenging at the best of times, particularly at Channel 4, where you are constantly competing for big audiences.”

As a result, the station has started to become “very specific” over where opportunities exist for AFP in the schedule. Two recent successes were daytime shows Weekend Kitchen with Waitrose and What’s Cooking, a partnership with Sainsbury’s.

“I’ve been doing this a long time,” Lewis added. “We definitely went through a low period a couple of years ago, when it was difficult for production companies to get stuff away with broad-

From left: Sue Unerman, Jon Lewis, Sally Quick, John Nolan and Claire Beale casters… I think there is a bit of a resurgence. It is about being clear and managing expectations from the outset.”

He added: “This market is starting to come alive again, on linear TV, as well as in digital.”

John Nolan, Managing Director at All3Media’s AFP arm, Apollo20, is a veteran of putting together shows funded by advertisers. He recalled how AFP had changed completely from the days when ITV screened Jim’s Inn, a so-called advertising magazine, which ran in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Said Nolan: “Customers would go in to a pub run by a bloke called Jim and would say, ‘That’s a really nice jumper you’ve got there.’ ‘It’s three and six from BHS. You can get one for your birthday,’ replies the bloke wearing it.

“I think there is a cultural question here about brands and their involvement with content,” he added. “Today, we ask if AFP is changing the nature of programmes. I don’t think it is. Good ideas are good ideas and they come from anywhere…

“Find My Past, which is made by an All3Media company, is a good idea. It doesn’t change because it is funded by a brand.”

Nolan went on: “Are brands trying to coerce programme-­makers and broadcasters to change their programmes �

25

Where do you get the money?

Sue Unerman: ‘We start with a zero-sum game every year.

Sometimes, it is additional money; sometimes, it is money that we feel isn’t doing enough of a job.

‘It is not black and white… If something works, the client will come back and do more of it. That’s how we’ve grown our business.’

Sally Quick: ‘It’s coming from different people. We’re dealing with PR firms and creative agencies, not just the media agencies of yesteryear. It’s coming from loads of different sources now.’

Jon Lewis: ‘My experience of talking to clients who have done some big AFPs with us is that it has been a toss-up between what they do in other areas, as opposed to coming out of TV ad space.”

How do AFP projects work?

John Nolan: ‘I get a brief from a media owner – a broadcaster or a platform – that says, “A brand has briefed us through its agency about wanting to do some content. Can we collaborate with you as a group?”

‘I’ve got experts in cooking, comedy, in female- and male-skewed programming. We will develop those shows to a commercial brief.

‘It’s no different to a commissioning editor saying, “I’m looking for a show that’s about so and so, for this audience, in this time slot.”

‘When the direction is, “Could you go and find an airline or a travel insurance company willing to fund my travel programme?”, that’s a more difficult fit. You’re then cold calling or calling up friends at agencies and asking, “Has one of your clients got a spare £2m they want to put into a programme that’s someone else’s idea?”…

‘Trying to reverse something into someone else’s money… good luck, if you can do it, but I’ve never done it once.’

26

I HAD BRANDS THAT WERE CONVINCED THAT AFP WAS RIGHT FOR THEM. I’D BE SITTING THERE WITH A POT OF MONEY TALKING TO THE TRADITIONAL BROADCASTERS, BUT THERE WAS NO WAY THEY WOULD TAKE THAT MONEY. IT COULD BE A LARGE AMOUNT OF MONEY, MAYBE A MILLION QUID

Find My Past, presented by Chris Hollins

� into adverts? The answer is yes, of course, they are. And then you have an intelligent conversation with them and with an intelligent agency.

“You say: ‘Why would you want to do that?’ You then jointly develop good programmes… It’s arrogant of producers to think that good ideas only come from their development teams.

“When you cross a Rubicon into a world that is research-based and concerned with specific audiences, then this is what it must be like to take drugs, where your eyes open to a whole new world of possibilities.

“You suddenly realise that there is a rigour, planning and attention to detail in the ideas that doesn’t exist in a subjective production company environment.”

Nolan emphasised that for an idea to work it had to have “buy-in from everybody” – the brand, the agency, the producer and the broadcaster.

He insisted that, as content, AFP should be no different to other shows.

It was the funding model that distinguished AFP. And, in any case, Ofcom regulated the sector.

But do brands understand that, probed Beale? Isn’t it a challenging conversation to have with someone

who has just put money on the table?

“You need to be honest with people,” Nolan replied. “You need to trust the people you are in the room with.

“If somebody who is entering into an AFP is asking, ‘Is it delivering the numbers?’, then there is something called advertising that they can buy.”

Sue Unerman, Chief Strategy Officer of MediaCom UK, said that her company regularly commissioned content.

It was not an easy or a simple thing to do, but “it is proving time and time again the right thing to do”.

She added: “There is not one client brief that goes through MediaCom’s planning floor now where the question ‘How can we use content?’ isn’t part of the process.”

MediaCom set up its in-house ­content division, MediaCom Beyond Advertising, in 2009. However, MediaCom still works in partnership with media owners and producers on AFP. “The brilliant content will find its audience. The mediocre content, which is probably 97% of it, won’t,” Unerman continued. “That’s where paid-for content distribution comes in… Average content can sell product, average advertising does sell product. Not everything wins a Campaign award.”

What are the best genres?

The success of an AFP is measured against client outcomes, such as changing how a brand is perceived.

Unerman stressed her faith in the enduring power of television advertising: “We are big believers in TV advertising; it isn’t going to go away.

“Content plays a different and complementary role to that… Most of the time, we’re probably still saying to clients that we believe there is a role for content that sits alongside advertising, rather than saying, ‘Don’t do that, you’re just being trendy’.”

These days, she said, all parties involved in funding, producing and distributing AFP were – usually – more realistic about the process.

“Why would a brand want to make content that people don’t want to watch?” asked Unerman. “It’s even more of a waste of money.”

Lewis said there was a new acceptance of AFP at Channel 4: “We now talk about ad-funded programme ideas, be they digital or linear. It is no longer frowned upon.”

Unerman implied that this was just as well because, in an online world, there were a lot more places where advertisers’ money could be spent.

“A while ago, I had brands that were

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

convinced that AFP was right for them.

I’d be sitting there with a pot of money talking to the traditional broadcasters, but there was no way they would take that money. It could be a large amount of money, maybe a million quid.

“Now there are so many different channels and so many ways to distribute that content that the money will get deployed in the appropriate way.”

Quick added that it helped that there were some AFP hits. “Our benchmark is to achieve [ratings that are] above the slot average,” she said, “and to grow our share of commercial impacts. Now that we have shows that are delivering, it makes a real difference.”

Nevertheless, Unerman concluded the debate with a word of caution: “We’re just at the beginning of this change. It is not as easy as it should be to do this.”

‘No longer only buying eyeballs: why advertisers want to make programmes’ was an RTS early-evening event held at The Hospital Club in central London on 24 February. The producers were Tom Frazer, Vice President, Strategy, Viacom; Kerry Parker, Head of Network Communications, UKTV; and Sue Unerman, Chief Strategy Officer, MediaCom UK.

Sue Unerman

Richard Kendal

Pete Dadds/UKTV

Jon Lewis: ‘Definitely food and lifestyle for daytime. Late night is more music-focused. When you move into the digital area, you are obviously going to go younger.

Fashion and beauty work in the digital space... There will always be genres that are difficult for brands to back, such as drama and comedy, because they involve a massive risk.’

Sue Unerman: ‘I can think of one project that didn’t get off the ground because it was outside of those genres. It was an idea around a chat show… [But] I think there is everything to play for and everywhere to go.’

John Nolan: ‘Fashion and travel. I had a meeting this morning with a guy who said he has this amazing idea for a travel show, and “I need you to find me a brand. What we’re going to do is go to New York and tell you what’s on this weekend.”

‘Then you go, “Let me stop you there.” A travel show these days is not just about travel, in the way that a cookery show isn’t just about food. There are fashions in broadcasting.

‘Cooking shows today are about lifestyles and narratives about lifestyles…You could say An Idiot Abroad is a travel show but I doubt if it was conceived as one…

Programmes that are simply about products are not going to get made…

‘So, in terms of genres, it’s open to fashion, travel, cars, sport, comedy, cooking and mixing those genres.’

27

The secrets of their success

T

he latest RTS Futures event offered sage advice to a young and eager audience on how to climb TV’s greasy pole, rising from a lowly runner to superstar status.

“Does it take talent, hard work, luck or good looks?” asked Broadcast magazine columnist and entertainment producer Steven D Wright, who chaired a five-strong panel of execs at the central London event. “Or,” he asked, “is it class?”

Television is frequently accused of being too posh, but the panel were united in the belief that, while this may once have been true, the industry is now more inclusive.

ITV Commissioning Editor, Comedy Entertainment, Claire Zolkwer, who has green-lit hit shows such as Celebrity Juice and The Only Way Is Essex, described herself as an “upstart Scot”. She was adamant that television “is not a closed shop”.

Sky Commissioning Editor Jon Mountague added: “Not so long ago, TV was populated by posh people, but the people who work in television need to

28

RTS Futures

Class is less the barrier to getting on in TV than it was, say five successful executives, hears Matthew Bell reflect the audience and I think TV is waking up to that.”

Wright came relatively late to television, at the age of 27. He had worked as a journalist but also “in a number of shit jobs”. These included time spent in an operating theatre and a stint as a holiday rep.

He landed his first TV job in the early 1990s, working on Planet 24’s late-night show for Channel 4, The Word.

Immediately, Wright knew, he stood out from the posh kids working around him, but he reckoned this worked to his advantage. “It was all about looks; it was all public school boys. It was golden youth, basically, and I was this fat c*** that came in and shone imme-

diately for one good reason – I watched telly.

“That rule still stands: ­if you don’t go home at night and watch telly, you shouldn’t be working in TV,” he said.

Sabina Smitham, a producer at online content creator and distributor Channel Flip and the youngster on the panel, admitted to confusion about her own class – and whether it worked for or against a person.

“When I started applying for TV jobs,” she said, “some people advised me to lose Oxford [University] from my CV because it was going to work against me.”

Smitham’s first foray into TV came with a four-week work experience placement on a show she loved, Channel 4’s Come Dine with Me. “That stood me in really good stead because it’s such a solid format; it’s travelled around the world and everyone wants a piece of it,” she recalled.

Smitham then landed a place on the graduate trainee scheme at FremantleMedia, a company that owns a lot of entertainment formats.

Once newbies have secured a lowlevel telly job, such as runner or

Making opportunities Torie Chilcott, Rockabox: ‘The people who really shine are the ones who are interested and interesting… Know everything because senior people know a lot about TV. They watch a lot of telly, love telly and like talking about telly.’

From left: David Clews, Claire Zolkwer, Torie Chilcott, Jon Mountague, Sabina Smitham, and Steven D Wright researcher, they have to shine if they want to move on. “You have to get yourself noticed, although not in an overly pushy way because that’s really annoying,” warned David Clews, who won a Bafta craft award for directing Channel 4’s Educating Essex.

“I see in the office the ones who are really good at it: talking to the right series producers, befriending the production managers and talking to the co-ordinators of different projects,” he added.

Networking is the key, reckoned Smitham, adding that “it’s really important to make friends at your level [because] you will grow up in the industry together”.

“Don’t be in a rush,” advised Torie Chilcott, co-founder of digital marketing outfit Rockabox and a former TV producer and format developer, who, at FremantleMedia, created the Bafta-­ nominated Farmer Wants a Wife for ITV. “If you’re a researcher, be a really good researcher, learn your skills and work hard,” she said.

Chilcott recommended building from an “eclectic base”, gaining experience in a number of genres and work-

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

Paul Hampartsoumian

David Clews, Twofour: ‘Being able to [use] a camera helps – everyone expects that now. Can you edit in Final Cut Pro? Can you work simple graphics packages? Push [your] production company to give you those opportunities.

‘Try different things. Lots of young people who come in and start work are so desperate to become an AP [assistant producer] when they’ve only been a researcher for three weeks – it doesn’t help them. They fall away because they don’t have the skills.’

Sabina Smitham, Channel Flip: ‘Luck… comes into play but, as long as you’re working hard and making opportunities for yourself, [success] is not necessarily about good fortune. ‘[Treat YouTube as] an opportunity to learn your craft and to share video with potential employers… rather than expecting to be the next [fashion and beauty vlogger] Zoella.

‘You shouldn’t be scared of taking a sideways step or a step down in the hierarchy, if you’re moving into an area that you really want to be in.’

Claire Zolkwer, ITV: ‘The role of a mentor is key. Find somebody two or three years on from you and ask them for

ing out where to specialise. Equally, it was important not to move endlessly from genre to genre, she said.

Working as an assistant producer on Jim Davidson’s Generation Game, Mountague suddenly realised that he didn’t want to work on the show or in the entertainment genre. “I’d drifted into an area that I didn’t want to be in,” he recalled.

Mountague became “single-minded about wanting to work in scripted comedy. That was what I was a fan of, as a viewer and as a kid growing up.”

Since his epiphany, the Sky commissioner has worked on Johnny Vegas’s BBC sitcom Ideal and is currently responsible for Sky 1 comedies Stella and Trollied.

help with your career… People like to give advice.’

Jon Mountague, Sky: ‘One of the baseline skills you need in any genre, at any level, is storytelling. Every genre relies on telling great stories, whether it’s current affairs, factual, comedy or drama.’

Steven D Wright, event chair: ‘The people you apply to for jobs will notice every mistake. If you do arse lick and say you love their programme, they will test you on it… They’re as hard as nails.

‘Being cynical is the one thing in telly that people hate. People who don’t care about a show are out [the door].

‘You have to love what you’re doing because it’s such a horrible job – no one enjoys working as a runner, because you’re treated like dirt. You’ve got to love the subject in order to get though the day.’

Fortunately for today’s hopefuls, the TV industry is a more welcoming, nicer place than it once was.

One indie he worked with was a “brutal, sink or swim” environment, recalled Wright.

“It was so horrible that I’ve spent the rest of my career helping everybody,” he said. “You don’t have to humiliate people; you can actually be nice. Most people in telly, especially if they’ve been through a tough regime, are friendly and open.”

‘From runner to superstar’ was an RTS Futures event held at the Hallam Conference Centre in central London on 24 February. The producers were Lisa Campbell, Reem Nouss and Jessica Wilson.

29

BBC Persian, part of the World Service

T

he headlines surrounding the BBC World Service could hardly be more worrying. Of late, the news has been about job losses, service cuts, shrinking income and the danger of being outgunned by big-spending foreign rivals.

The BBC itself issued a stark warning recently about the challenges facing what many view as a unique UK asset, in a report on “The Future of News”.

Last year, James Harding, the BBC’s Director of News and Current Affairs, told the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee that the World Service budget would be maintained at £245m in 2014/15, up from £238.5m the previous year. In 2011/12, the figure was £255m.

“The World Service faces a choice between decline and growth,” the report argued. “If the UK wants the BBC World Service to remain valued and respected, an ambassador for Britain’s values and an agent of soft power

30

BBC World Service

Its many supporters say the BBC World Service is more vital than ever, so how come it remains strapped for cash? asks Raymond Snoddy in the world, then the BBC is going to have to commit to growing the World Service and the Government will have to recognise this,” it added.

Everywhere you look, the World Service is facing more competition.

Russia Today (RT), is believed to be increasing its global budget by 40%, to around £180m, in 2015. And, according to the BBC report, China Central Television (CCTV) received nearly $7bn over three years to fund its international broadcasting operations.

BBC

Soft power on a shrinking income

And then there is the proliferation of Arabic television news channels in the Middle East.

In October, Fran Unsworth became the first woman to run the BBC World Service Group in its 82-year history.

She acknowledges the scale and complexity of the task she faces, even though overall reach, including BBC World and BBC.com, tops 265 million per week.

“The main challenge is whether we are going to have enough money to do what it is we think we need to do,” says Unsworth. “The other major challenge is really responding to the way that consumption habits are changing throughout the world, and changing at such different speeds in different countries and areas of the world.”

Unsworth’s two predecessors at the World Service – Peter Horrocks and Richard Sambrook – agree with her that, on balance, the 2010 deal with the Government that gave the BBC financial responsibility for the World Service was an improvement. Until then, the

service was funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

UK governments did not try to interfere with the editorial content of the World Service – beyond, perhaps, a raised eyebrow at a cocktail party. Even so, it has become a lot easier to persuade foreign governments, diplomats and listeners of the service’s editorial independence now that it is funded from the licence fee.

Less helpfully, the World Service must now compete for funds with other parts of the BBC, rather than awaiting the outcome of squabbles between Whitehall departments.

Sambrook says that, in his experience, few in the upper reaches of the corporation truly understand the World Service. They don’t see what makes it distinctive, or how thinly the resources of the language services are already stretched.

“The worry is that, at some level, it comes down to how important the Hausa service is versus Newsnight, let alone Strictly Come Dancing,” says Sambrook. He fears that the World Service could lose out in this fight for resources.

Despite the difficulties, he believes that the case for a properly funded World Service is gaining ground. This is partly thanks of the rise of competitors such as Russia Today and its Chinese rival, CCTV News.

“A well-resourced, solid, impartial service, where the world can talk to itself, is not some sort of colonial anachronism – the need for it is greater than ever,” Sambrook claims.

It is a view supported by Horrocks, who will take over as Vice-Chancellor of the Open University in the spring.

“In a world where information is being sensationalised and polarised, the case for a World Service that helps understanding and mutual tolerance in the world is unanswerable,” he says.

When he was in charge of the World Service, he axed more than 400 jobs and a number of language services to deliver savings of 16% between 2011 and 2014.

While few people seem to doubt that the World Service has an important role to play, questions about how it should

be achieved remain unanswered – above all, how it should be funded.

Unsworth is confident that she will not lose out to domestic BBC services in the competition for resources, because she sees “a real commitment” at the highest levels of the BBC. At the same time, though, she concedes that her service will not receive any special protection. So, could licence-fee funds be supplemented by some financial support from govern-

In most of the BBC’s overseas markets, the audience expects an international agenda. That could be provided by presenting a core of international news in relevant packages within the various language services.

Unsworth strongly believes that BBC News will itself have to expand internationally, if it is going to be credible in future.

“I do not think you can be taken seriously as a news organisation without the international footprint,” she argues.

“National barriers are massively coming down and we can’t retreat into just being a domestic news provider. I don’t think that would serve Britain at all well.”

The future of the World Service will increasingly be digital and involve apps. In India, for example, there has been a huge growth in smartphones, and the World Service will have to follow its audiences.

There will also be more emphasis on online reports and re-broadcasting television programmes with the help of partner stations.

Using the latest technology could, indeed, facilitate an expansion of services after the previous retrenchments, despite the continuing downward pressure on finances.

“I think that technology might enable us to launch more language services,” says Unsworth. “I would very much like to look at areas of need around the world and look at where people do not have access to independent, impartial news, and ask what could we do for those areas.”

The areas she has in mind include North Korea and China – and some parts of Europe from which the service has retreated and where there remains a dearth of impartial information.

When she was appointed, Unsworth described it as “the proudest day in my professional life”.

Months later, she remains “very optimistic” about her service because she believes that she has a “big commitment” from the BBC and because the BBC retains the support of the British public.

A WELL-RESOURCED, SOLID, IMPARTIAL SERVICE, WHERE THE WORLD CAN TALK TO ITSELF, IS NOT SOME SORT OF COLONIAL ANACHRONISM – THE NEED FOR IT IS GREATER THAN EVER

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

ment – in particular, the Department for International Development?

Unsworth believes that the World Service’s ability to demonstrate its independence from Whitehall would be jeopardised by accepting general funds from government.

“I think there are always ways in which one might tap into other areas for additional funds for special projects,” says the World Service Group Director, who also recognises the need to find some commercial funding.

Her immediate predecessor, Horrocks, argues, however, that “clever, joined-up thinking” between the BBC and various government departments could construct an investment package for the World Service “to meet the needs of a fragmented information environment that includes poisonous information on the internet”.

Irrespective of precisely how the overall financing package is constructed, Unsworth believes the World Service can help itself by taking advantage of all the news expertise under one roof in New Broadcasting House.

The World Service and the News Channel, for instance, could share more content streams. Likewise, national radio and World Service English radio could have jointly written bulletins.

31

FROM THE DIGITAL EDITOR

RTS

Tim Dickens shares the most popular online content this month at the RTS

32

Wolf Hall Should drama be historically accurate?

After Wolf Hall was bashed by bishops who felt it was “perverse” in its character descriptions, digital team writer Rebecca Stewart set out to get to the bottom of the story.

Her online feature consults the experts – from Steve November, ITV’s Director of Drama (“There’s a duty not to wilfully misinform”) to Cambridge academic Richard Rex (“To misrepresent the known truth is different to adjusting detail or embellishing”).

The future of free-to-air sport With The Open now moving to Sky, digital team intern Alastair Ballantyne takes a look at the future of sports broadcasting and asks if we’ll soon have to pay to watch all sports on TV. Senior figures from Sky and the BBC share their feelings about why their platform is the best for sport.

Tips in 60 Seconds – Nina dos Santos, CNN Our most popular Tips Tuesday instalment last month came from CNN International anchor Nina dos

BBC

March is one of the busiest months for the RTS website: it’s awards season, and we’re riding high on the wave of interest in the RTS Television Journalism Awards, while counting down to the glamour of the RTS Programme Awards.

The RTS digital team was first to tweet all the winners from the Hilton for the Journalism Awards.

Shortly after that, we published shareable video interview clips for Facebook and for rts.org.uk.

We also had the freed Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste’s speech – both text and video. This proved instantly popular on the web.

There’s barely time to dry clean my DJ before we roll up to the Grosvenor House Hotel for the Programme Awards on 17 March.

The team will be joining the stars on the red carpet to grab audio, video and written content for the site and for our growing social media audience.

The first place to learn the winners will be on rts.org.uk and our Twitter feed.

Rebecca Stewart is editing the second of our Behind the Scenes series. This one is on Channel 4 News and it’s proving tricky to cut down to 10 minutes.

We could do 20 minutes with Jon Snow alone. The video will go online later this month.

We’ve also been guests at Broadcasting House recently, shooting backstage at The One Show. Sandy Smith and his team could not have been more accommodating as we spent the day interviewing everyone from the production runners to presenter Matt Baker.

It made me realise what monumental skill and effort goes into the show night after night.

Hopefully, we will capture those efforts in the finished film.

Santos, who gave her whistle-stop advice to presenting the news.

Game of Thrones premiere In early March, we launched a members-only competition for tickets to the Game of Thrones Season 5 world premiere at the Tower of London. The Tower has seen its fair share of plot twists and treachery, so seems the perfect place for our members to mingle with the show’s stars as guests of Sky Atlantic at the 18 March screening. Watch this space for more online competitions for screenings and premiere tickets…

In the pipeline The RTS website will be the first place to get all the news and gossip from the Programme Awards on 17 March, including videos and interviews. We’ll also be live tweeting and reporting from “Armando Iannucci in conversation with Lucy Lumsden” at the Telford Theatre in Westminster on 25 March; and there’ll be Tips in 60 Seconds from, among others, Wolf Hall sound recordist Simon Clark.

March 2015 www.rts.org.uk Television

The awards ceremony on 18 February 2015 at the Hilton, Park Lane was hosted by Becky Anderson

RTS Television Journalism Awards 2013-2014

Daily News Programme of the Year: ITV News at Ten

Camera Operator of the Year

Andriy Perun Reuters “The winner’s coverage of the crisis in Ukraine was courageous, powerful, and terrifying. Beautifully framed shots were mixed with scenes of extraordinary drama, filmed in the thick of the fighting. This was a close-up and exceptionally brave account of one of the year’s most important stories.”

Nominees: Todd Baxter, CNN International Nik Millard, BBC News

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

Nations and Regions Current Affairs

Who Murdered Maxine?

BBC West Midlands “The winning programme brought back the horror of the Birmingham pub bombings from a very different perspective. Beautifully shot and paced, it contained some moving and revealing interviews and detailed one family’s determination with finding out who really killed their sister.”

Nominees: Week In Week Out – Cardiff to Syria: Journey To Jihad, BBC Wales Spotlight – A Woman Alone with the IRA, BBC Northern Ireland

Host: Becky Anderson

Nations and Regions News

BBC South East Today BBC “Original, brave and hard-hitting reports from a small news team, with great use of technology and social media. Colin Campbell’s investigations into cross-channel migration and fly tipping were exceptional.

Regional news at its very best.”

Nominees: ITV News West Country (West) Calendar – Tour de France Grand Depart, ITV Yorkshire �

33

Current Affairs – Home

Panorama – Britain’s Secret Terror Force twenty2vision for BBC One “This impeccable forensic investigation uncovered a secret military unit operating outside normal rules of engagement on the streets of Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles. In a compelling programme, reporter John Ware and the production team told the story for the first time and persuaded three former MRF men to speak on camera. These unresolved killings of unarmed civilians, as well as known IRA men, still resonate 40 years on. New inquests have been ordered in two of the cases featured.”

Nominees: Dispatches – Breadline Kids, True Vision for Channel 4 The Gypsy Matchmaker, Minnow Films for Channel 4

Current Affairs – International: Dispatches – Children on the Frontline

Current Affairs – Home: Panorama – Britain’s Secret Terror Force

Current Affairs – International

N – I

Dispatches – Children on the Frontline ITN Productions for Channel 4 “The idea of exploring the war in Syria – the conflict of the moment – through the eyes of children was brilliant and the resulting film was extremely moving.”

Nominees: This World – Terror at the Mall, Amos Pictures for BBC Two Al Jazeera Investigates – Broken Dreams: The Boeing 787, Al Jazeera English

Camera Operator of the Year: Andriy Perun

Daily News Programme of the Year

ITV News at Ten ITN for ITV News “Extraordinarily strong. Exemplary foreign coverage, a range of reporters – by turns heavyweight, warm, literate and likeable but, above all, trustworthy, and always well told.”

Nominees: Channel 4 News 5 News

News Technology: A Cloud over Copacabana

Network Presenter of the Year

Mark Austin ITV News at Ten “A brilliant presenter from location, where he gets to the heart of a story and becomes involved as a reporter as well as delivering the news in his customary, authoritative style. The judges were impressed by his anchoring from the Middle East, and by his powerful and sensitive interview with Bob Geldof.”

Nominees: Julie Etchingham, ITV News at Ten Emily Maitlis, Newsnight

34

Nations and Regions News: BBC South East Today

Television Journalist of the Year: Matt Frei

Nations and Regions Current Affairs: Who Murdered Maxine?

News Channel of the Year

Sky News Sky News “All the nominated channels deserved recognition for strong performances in an exceptionally busy and difficult year of news. However, the winning entry stood out for the range of coverage, for hitting some of the year’s big issues early and in depth, and for the energy and innovation evident in its approach to major events.”

Nominees: BBC News Channel CNN International

Scoop of the Year: Spotlight – A Woman Alone with the IRA

News Coverage – Home

Jihadi Terror ITV News “The winning entry took viewers right to the heart of the story and brought home what a domestic story this really is.”

Nominees: Independence Referendum, Channel 4 News Floods, Sky News

News Coverage – Home: Jihadi Terror News Coverage – International: ITV News

News Coverage – International

Regional Presenter of the Year: Harry Gration MBE

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

Pictures: Richard Kendal/BBC/Channel 4/Reuters/ITV

Ukraine ITV News “This was journalistic enterprise at its best. Comprehensive, insightful and dramatic. A commitment to the story resulted in extraordinary moments on camera and more than one scoop.

James Mates, in particular, was constantly ahead of the game in covering the unfolding story of Ukraine, with the result that viewers were taken through events in real time on all sides of the conflict.”

Nominees: Gaza, BBC News Iraq Crisis, ITV News

News Technology

A Cloud over Copacabana – BBC’s World Cup Data Network BBC News “A hugely impressive technological achievement, which made a big difference on screen. The boffins at the BBC created a mesh network – in effect, a private wifi cloud – over Copacabana, enabling the corporation to provide its reporters with rock-solid live reporting capability, not only along the entirety of the 4km beach, but from the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain as well.”

Nominees: Stand Up Be Counted, Sky News Drone Camera – Tacloban, CNN International

Regional Presenter of the Year

Harry Gration MBE BBC Look North “Our winner is a Yorkshire institution, and in the past year he showed he remains on top form. His emotional involvement with Yorkshire’s biggest moments – notably Le Tour de France – really connects with viewers; but he is also trusted by his audience on major news stories, such as the tragic murder of a Leeds schoolteacher. His range and his authority are admirable.”

Nominees: Ian Axton, ITV News West Country Polly Evans, BBC South East Today

Scoop of the Year

Spotlight – A Woman Alone with the IRA BBC Northern Ireland “The Scoop award recognises exclusive, original journalism that has a wide impact. The winning entry made headlines on both sides of the Atlantic and has triggered parliamentary and governmental action. At the heart of it was one woman waiving her right to anonymity to do what virtually no republican ever does on camera, speak out against the IRA.” Nominees: Cliff Richard Raid, BBC News Panorama – The Fake Sheikh Exposed, BBC Current Affairs

Specialist Journalist of the Year

Alison Holt BBC News “The winner consistently delivered stories that were agenda-setting, policy shifting and politically important – while treating people at the heart of the stories with patience, knowledge and understanding.”

Nominee: Fergus Walsh, BBC News

Television Journalist of the Year

Matt Frei Channel 4 News “[Matt Frei] demonstrated the absolute value of being on the scene of major stories as they unfolded, close to the action, but with the composure and eloquence to convey a complete picture to viewers. Remarkable frontline reporting and fine writing, and a real sense of humanity, as well as a light touch at just the right moment.”

Nominees: Lyse Doucet, BBC News James Mates, ITV News �

35

The Independent Award

Bruce Lee, King of the Sewers Ecostorm for Channel 4 News “This film told an absolutely compelling story and exposed a horrible reality. It took many months to set up, and although other journalists have tried before to tell the story of the weird world of the men, women and children living in the sewers of Bucharest, this was a quite remarkable film with brilliant pictures and great storytelling.”

Nominees: The Minova Rape Trial, Studio 9 Films for Newsnight Unreported World: The Invisible People, Quicksilver Media for Channel 4

News Channel of the Year: Sky News

Young Talent of the Year

Mstyslav Chernov APTN “His pictures ‘sizzled’ – with a visual narrative that took you right to the heart of the story.”

Nominees: Dan Ashby, ITV News Tyne Tees Fatima Manji, Channel 4 News

Lifetime Achievement Award

Lawrence McGinty “A science journalist who has practised his craft for over 40 years, he began in academic publishing, then moved to New Scientist magazine, before venturing into broadcasting. He has won awards from the broadcasting industry and the science and medical communities. The hallmark of his work has been communicating often complex subjects in a way that will engage and inform audiences.”

The Independent Award: Bruce Lee, King of the Sewers

Network Presenter of the Year: Mark Austin Young Talent of the Year: Mstyslav Chernov

Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed Al Jazeera “Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed conducted themselves with enormous dignity and courage in the face of continued uncertainty about their fate, after being arrested in Cairo and charged with spreading false news.

We also recognise the commitment of the people who have campaigned – and continue to campaign – for the release of the two on bail.

“Under the terms of that bail, we are unable to present the two men with their awards, but we will when they are finally released.” (See opposite page.)

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Specialist Journalist of the Year: Alison Holt

Lifetime Achievement Award: Lawrence McGinty

Pictures: Richard Kendal/APTN/Sky News/ITV

Judges’ Award

The judges’ view ‘Over the years, the Judges’ Award has gone to individuals and, sometimes, to groups of individuals. I think I am right in saying that this is the first time that the judges have sat down and decided to choose a group of individuals who were, at the time, in prison,’ Stewart Purvis CBE, Chair of the RTS Television Journalism Awards, told the audience: ‘Having made that decision, our main task was – how to let them know that they had won.”

‘In December 2013, three journalists from Al Jazeera English were arrested and charged with spreading false news and collaborating with the Muslim Brotherhood after the overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi.

They were sentenced to between seven and 10 years in prison. Whatever dispute the Egyptian Government may have had with the Qatari owners of Al Jazeera and its channel aimed at Egypt, the evidence on the terrorist charges against the three Al Jazeera English staff was – in the eyes of independent experts – non-existent.’

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

L

adies and gentlemen, thank you. This award isn’t a surprise, of course – we knew about it even before I was released from prison a few weeks ago. But my heart is still beating as though I had just run here from Cairo.

I speak for all three of us – Baher, Fahmy and I – when I tell you that we are truly honoured and humbled to receive this award.

There are the usual thank-yous of course – to the judges and our extraordinary families who’ve been through hell and back. But there are also a few other points I’d like to make.

First, it’s about us. By that, I don’t simply mean we three, I mean the broader collective “us” – and that includes everyone in media who turned out to support our cause.

We journalists are a cranky, cantankerous lot. We are almost impossible to organise. We are, by nature, argumentative. We’d much rather compete than cooperate.

In fact, about the only time we ever move in the same direction is when there is a bar in the room.

And yet, throughout our detention, the media has somehow abandoned the habits and instincts of a lifetime to line up behind us in an extraordinary way.

For us, in prison, we knew a bit about it. We were aware of some of the demonstrations; we’d heard about the zip-the-lips campaign and the letters.

Richard Kendal

Peter Greste accepted the Judges’ Award on behalf of his Al Jazeera colleagues, Baher Mohamed and Mohamed Fahmy, who were still being held on bail in Cairo

Most surprisingly, some of our most vocal supporters were our direct rivals, such as CNN and the BBC, who’d normally rather eat their own babies than acknowledge the opposition.

At the personal level, it was hugely empowering. It helped put rods of steel in our spines, because we came to understand that this was about something far bigger than the three of us alone. It was about the universal principles of freedom of expression, about the public’s right to know.

This matters, not just because of the impact on us and our case. Right now, the very idea of a free press is increasingly under attack from groups who take the heads off journalists, to individuals who shoot up a magazine office in Paris or a free-speech conference in Denmark, to governments trying to limit the scope of our work with draconian legislation.

You made it clear that these are things we are prepared to fight for as one. And whatever happens from here, we must not lose that extraordinary singular voice.

For a long while I’ve felt puzzled about why we should be here, among such incredible people. After all, the plain fact is that, in Cairo, we were doing nothing particularly radical or extraordinary.

Our work was pretty pedestrian. But that was because, given the environment at the time, we knew we needed to play it safe.

But I’ve come to realise that among the gongs for genius, our community also needs to celebrate the banal. I don’t mean to be self-depreciating here. Quite the opposite.

When we are doing our jobs properly and freely, we allow a healthy society to talk to itself.

I know a lot of people would argue that social media has taken over that role, but we’ve learned rather tragically that social media tends to create silos.

Small fringe groups retreat from the centre, talking only among themselves, becoming ever more radical as they become more isolated.

I’d like to accept this award not only on behalf of Baher and Fahmy, who’ve stood up and defended the principles of press freedom with courage and determination, but also the 99% of us who didn’t come up here tonight.

The routine and generally unrecognised work that we all do is also worth celebrating and fighting for.

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RTS NEWS IET and RTS share good news for TV

■ “New types of media never replace the existing modes… instead, a convergence takes place… leading to a different field of use for these older forms,” noted German newspaper editor Wolfgang Riepl in 1913. This principle still holds true today, argued Wales Centre Chair Tim Hartley at an event, “Technology and TV: a threat to traditional viewing or a challenge to the industry?”, held in conjunction with the Institution of Engineering and Technology.

“Film did not replace live theatre, television did not replace the cinema and today’s broadband social networks are complementing, rather than replacing, television viewing,” he said at the event in Bridgend at the end of January.

Television viewing still dwarfs online audiences.

“Traditional television is incredibly resilient and has reinvented itself time and again,” Hartley said.

He argued, however, that VoD and broadband services are threatening some business models.

“But, rather than getting left behind, traditional broadcasters and pay-TV operators are recognising these changes and are expanding their subscription VoD offers, too,” said Hartley.

Despite the growth of online services, audience fragmentation and threats to funding, Hartley concluded: “Television still looks pretty much the same. New formats, devices and innovation – yes. But television has evolved and we have chosen to stick with it.”

Hywel Wiliam

38

BBC lounge in the lead

A

dapt, survive and flourish was Iain Tweedale’s message for television producers at Wales Centre’s “Keeping up with the kids” event, held at the new BBC Wales Innovation Lounge in early February.

The Head of Interactive and Learning at BBC Wales said: “Our competitors in the future are not necessarily going to be primarily ITV and so on – it’s going to be Google, Netflix and Amazon, and we have to be in that space.”

The Innovation Lounge is packed with the latest broadcast kit, and the audience of students, producers, trainees and RTS Wales members were given demonstrations of new ideas in multi-format production, mobile applications and social media, as well as a beta version of the MyBBC app.

The app, which is expected

Michael Surcombe to launch soon, uses recommendations and viewing history to generate personalised content for the user.

Guests were also told about additional services on smartphones and social media for programmes such as Doctor Who. With a follow-

ing of more than 1.2 million on Twitter, teams are now producing content for the sci-fi show even when it is off-air.

Tweedale believes the BBC is heading in the right direction, but he was quick to acknowledge the challenges that broadcasters face in responding to fast-changing technologies.

“The rate of change is increasing and we can’t keep up with it,” he said. “What we need to do is to innovate fast and then not worry about stuff if it doesn’t quite work.”

Following the presentation, guests were given a demonstration of the latest technology being used at BBC Wales by digital innovations expert Michael Surcombe, who discussed the growing use of drones, new live broadcasting kit and innovations in sound technology.

Chris Johnson

Midlands updated on UHD trial ■ Midlands Centre and the IET hosted the latest event in their “Talking television technology” series in December, putting the spotlight on the BBC’s successful trial of ultra high-definition TV at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

At the Birmingham event, John Zubrzycki and John Fletcher from BBC Research & Development explained how live pictures from multiple 4K cameras were relayed, vision mixed and broadcast via broadband and digital terrestrial TV (DTT) from the sporting event in the summer. A major aim of the trial was to explore the use of

computer data networks based on internet protocol (IP) for the production and delivery of live TV. Fletcher revealed that up to four Ultra-HD cameras captured the opening ceremony and other sports, such as gymnastics. IP streams were taken over Virgin Media Business dark fibre links, equipped with Cisco switches and routers, to the Ultra-HD gallery in the Glasgow Science Centre. There, the director and small production team could call the shots.

The sound mixing and the commentary for this trial were done in London, with the video and audio signals

being sent from Glasgow to London and the mix returned over the Joint Academic Network (Janet).

Zubrzycki explained that the distribution of the Ultra-HD streams via both DTT and domestic broadband was not to show which was better but to illustrate that both methods were viable for home delivery.

The DTT signals were sent from three experimental transmitters near London, Manchester and Glasgow, while broadband used BT’s Content Delivery Network and Infinity broadband lines.

The broadband had a delay of about 45 seconds.

Stars shine for the North East

All pictures: Steve Brock

Clockwise from top: Martin Shaw; Brenda Blethyn; Steph McGovern; and Denise Robert­ son (left) with Dianne Nelmes

M

artin Shaw accepted the Best Drama award for BBC One police drama Inspector George Gently at the RTS North East & The Border Annual Awards ceremony at the end of February.

The 1960s-set show, in which Shaw plays the title role, is shot on location in the North East by Company Pictures. It saw off competition from other local dramas, including ITV’s Vera and CBBC mini-series Harriet’s Army.

The BBC also won the Best Factual category for A King’s Speech, which uncovered film of an address made by US civil rights leader Martin

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

Luther King on a visit to Newcastle.

ITV picked up two of the news awards: ITV News Tyne Tees and ITV News Lookaround anchor Pam Royle was named Presenter of the Year for the second year running and ITV Tyne Tees scooped

the Best News Programme award for its coverage of the Tour de France in North Yorkshire. Dan Farthing from BBC North East and Cumbria won the Outstanding Journal­ ism award.

The prestigious Centre Award went to Jamie Hutchinson of facilities and

kit hire company Picture Canning North in recognition of his support for emerging talent and his ability to attract production crew to the region. The award was presented by RTS Chief Executive Theresa Wise.

BBC North East graphic designer Tony Bannister received a Lifetime Achievement award, presented by Jonathan Edwards of BBC Sport, to honour a career in network and regional productions spanning more than four decades.

Winners in the student categories included Kyle Russell of Teesside University for Torn (Fiction), Matt Eyre and team of the University of Sunderland for Newtube (Entertainment) and James Beavers of Northumbria ­University for Breaking the Ice (Animation).

Centre Chair Graeme Thompson aid that the event was an impressive showcase for the creativity of the region.

“We are part of the fastest-­ growing sector in the British economy,” he said. “This event recognises the increasingly important role played by television and digital media in this part of the UK.” More than 400 industry professionals and guests attended the event at the Newcastle Gateshead Hilton, which was hosted by Steph McGovern of BBC Breakfast.

The ceremony was graced by a number of guests, including Vera star Brenda Blethyn, Ben Crompton from Game of Thrones, Waterloo Road star Melanie Hill, James Baxter from Still Open All Hours, This Morning agony aunt Denise Robertson, Hebburn creator Jason Cook and Horrible Histories creator Terry Deary.

Matthew Bell

39

RTS NEWS

Student awards make a splash

Winners ■ London

Animation: Fractured, Jocie Juritz, Kingston University Drama: Breach, Nathanael Valente and team, University of Hertfordshire Entertainment: Bun Oven, Genia Krassnig, Christian Cerami, Matt Tume and team, University of Westminster Factual: Finding Serenity, Lauren Howard and Lauren Woodfall, University for the Creative Arts, Maidstone

■ Scotland

Animation: Domestic Appliances, Lewis Firth Bolton, Edinburgh College of Art (University of Edinburgh) Camera: The Scribbler, Shayne Tabet, The Royal Conserva­ toire of Scotland Drama: The Scribbler, Kurosh Kani, Hannah Smith and

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London Factual winner

RTÉ One Controller Adrian Lynch on little to no budget. A high percentage of entries were certainly of broadcast standard,” she said.

Two days later, RTS Scotland held its awards at BBC Scotland in Glasgow, this

Jennifer Barrie, The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Editing: Under the Skin, Derek Sigurdsson and Philip McVeigh, University of Stirling Entertainment: Marital Kombat, Ally Lockhart and team, City of Glasgow College Factual: Under the Skin, Yana Ivantcheva, Josh Bird, Derek Sigurdsson, Tommaso Aglietti and Philip McVeigh, University of Stirling Sound: Beloved Sinners, David Kotai, University of Stirling

■ North West

Animation: Consumption, Benjamin Archer, University of Central Lancashire Drama: Delicacy, Helen Curran, Theo Kirkpatrick and Sara Brady, Manchester Film School Factual: One Eye Open, Ian Gardner and Josie Web­ ster, Liverpool John Moores University

year offering three new craft categories that recognised excellence in camera, sound and editing.

The Animation award was presented to Lewis Firth Bolton from Edinburgh

Entertainment: 5 Min Rom Com, Boby Ramanathan and team, Manchester Film School at The Manchester College Open category: LA Larry, Lauren Clark, University of Central Lancashire

■ Republic of Ireland

Animation: Shoot, Rory Con­ way, Sammy Khalid, David Slattery and Kiera Noone, Irish School of Animation, Ballyfermot College of Further Education Drama: Skunky Dog, James Fitzgerald, Paddy Slattery and team, National Film School, Institute of Art, Design & Technology Entertainment: Your Silent Face, Gary Christie, Film & Television Department, Bally­ fermot College of Further Education Factual: BÓ, Oisín Bickley and team, National Film School

Paul Hampartsoumian

F

ebruary saw a slew of awards ceremonies at RTS Centres around the country celebrating the work of student film-makers.

The London awards were held on 3 February at ITV Studios. Jocie Juritz from Kingston University won the animation category for Fractured, which the jury praised for portraying difficult emotions through the use of imagery alone.

A team from the University of Westminster took home the Entertainment award for Bun Oven, which the jury said was highly professional, well cast and tightly edited, with fantastic performances.

BBC producer Andrea Gauld, who chaired the awards, was impressed by the quality and range of the films. “This was all achieved

­ ollege of Art for Domestic C Appliances, which cleverly combined animation and live action sequences. A team from The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland took home the Drama award for The Scribbler, a film that was full of wit and charm, with an impressively large cast and great direction and camera­work.

“Not only are the awards an opportunity to celebrate the skills and dedication the nominees have brought to their projects, they also give industry professionals a unique opportunity to have a close look at some of the brilliant talent coming out of Scotland,” said Henry Eagles, who hosted the evening and chaired the judging panel.

The North West awards on 11 February were held at the Lowry Theatre, Salford, and hosted by BBC presenter Louise Minchin, with guest speaker Dan Walker from BBC Sport.

Students from the University of Central Lancashire won awards in two categories. Benjamin Archer took the Animation first prize with Consumption, which the judges said was dramatic and atmos-

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

Catherine Ashmore

pheric, and used impressive models with superb detail.

The Open category was introduced this year for films of up to three minutes in length and was won by Lauren Clark for LA Larry, which contrasted drizzly Preston with the sunshine of Los Angeles.

The awards ceremony followed a half-day event for students across the region, produced with Salford University, which attracted high-profile speakers from broadcasters and independent production companies.

“It’s invigorating to see how much quality is coming through into the industry,” said Alex Connock, Chair of the RTS North West Centre and Managing Director of Shine North.

The following day, the Republic of Ireland held its ceremony at RTÉ in Dublin with Adrian Lynch, Channel Controller of RTÉ One Television, presenting the awards.

Students from the National Film School won two awards.

A team led by James Fitzgerald and Paddy Slattery took the Drama category with Skunky Dog, about a young boy’s lonely life in a country town. The judges felt this was a strong, well-acted, directed and edited drama that pulled no punches.

Rory Conway, Sammy Khalid, David Slattery and Kiera Noone from the Irish School of Animation won the Animation award for Shoot.

This featured swift action scenes, effectively executed and matched with the score and sound effects.

“We were delighted with the high standard and the number of entries submitted this year,” said Charles Byrne, Chair of the RTS Republic of Ireland Centre.

Matthew Bell

War Horse

Live theatre, on screen

S

ince its first broadcast of Phèdre, with Helen Mirren in the title role in 2009, National Theatre Live has brought almost 50 plays to 4 million people worldwide in 2,000 cinemas.

At a London Centre event in early March, Executive Producer David Sabel and Technical Producer Chris Bretnall discussed NT Live with journalist George Jarrett.

During the evening, the audience were treated to clips from NT Live broadcasts, including War Horse, Othello and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

NT Live was inspired by the success of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, which, starting with The Magic Flute, has been screening performances live since December 2006. “A live and a shared experience on a big screen in a cinema, although it can never be the same thing as going to the theatre, retains the DNA of live performance,” said Sabel. “The great gift of NT Live is that you’re seeing the intimacy, the nuance and the detail of the performance.”

Live screenings widen access to the theatre. “We

have national in our name,” said Sabel, who has been involved since the first days of NT Live. “The exciting opportunity for us was that we were going to be able to reach more people around the country.”

The pilot season of four screenings was a year in the planning, with production kept in-house mainly for artistic – but also financial – reasons. “We wanted to preserve the integrity of what was being created on stage,” said Sabel.

In-house production, reckoned Bretnall, is vital. “It is the National producing content for the National; it’s not a big, nasty broadcaster coming in, taking over and doing what the hell they like – we have 100% buy-in from the team at the National,” he said.

Bretnall, who served 19 years at BBC Outside Broadcasts before founding his company, Creative Broadcast Solutions, worked with the Metropolitan Opera on its first two live seasons.

Like Sabel, he has been part of NT Live since Phèdre.

Bretnall said the production team have “almost total freedom to put what we

want where we want it, to try and bring a story that has been developed for the stage on to the big screen.

“The National Theatre gives me and the directors the flexibility to take out seats, build as many tracks as we like and have as many cranes as we need to be sympathetic to the story that’s being told on the stage.”

The production team watch the play repeatedly. They have two dry runs – filming the actors performing without an audience – to work out the best camera positions, and to perfect the lighting and sound. The production is filmed for live relay, via satellite, to UK (and some European) cinemas.

NT Live has expanded from its Southbank base to film Coriolanus from the Donmar Warehouse and A Streetcar Named Desire from the Young Vic. Each broadcast costs £250,000-£350,000, revealed Sabel. NT Live, he added, “is now generating revenue for the National and, very importantly, for the artists, because they are all part of the profit share”.

Matthew Bell

41

OFF MESSAGE

T

here are fascinating revelations in Jean Seaton’s new official history of the BBC, Pinkoes and Traitors: The BBC and the Nation 1974-1987. And not only regarding the tendency of certain corporation legends to treat young, female staff with a lack of respect.

Seaton tells us how, during Jim Callaghan’s Government in the 1970s, the Prime Minister and Tony Benn formed an unlikely alliance. They both wanted to abolish the licence fee and bring the BBC within general government expenditure.

The broadcaster would then lose its independence and become an arm of state. How liberal is that?

The idea makes George Osborne’s 2010 licence-fee freeze, hurriedly concluded behind closed doors, look almost civilised by comparison.

■ Staying with Seaton’s book, one of the most flattering and elegant reviews was published by the Financial Times. It was written by none other than Chris Patten, a wordsmith of considerable distinction.

The former Trust Chair defends the BBC’s present regulatory arrangements without quite giving the Trust his total endorsement. As for the book itself, Patten’s verdict is that it is “hugely entertaining and wise”.

Some reviewers have begged to differ. In The Guardian, Seumas Milne, son of Alasdair Milne, the DG sacked

by Margaret Thatcher’s henchman Duke Hussey, makes no secret of his vested interest in some of the events that Seaton describes.

42

He alleges that Seaton “sanitises and misrepresents” what really happened between the BBC and those who went to war with the broadcaster during Thatcher’s rule.

As with so much concerning the BBC, objective voices are hard to find. And Seaton is the institution’s “official” historian.

■ Whatever would Channel 4 do without the great Jon Snow?

As well as anchoring one of the best news programmes on TV, Snow gave a bravura appearance in the station’s RTS-nominated arts show Our Gay Wedding: The Musical.

And, earlier this month, we saw Snow getting high on skunk in Drugs Live: Cannabis on Trial.

So what did the man blessed with one of London’s most impressive tie collections think of the experience?

“I’ve worked in war zones, but I’ve never been as overwhelmingly frightened as I was when I was in the MRI scanner after taking skunk. I would never do it again.”

■ The logistics of life at New Broadcasting House continue to raise eyebrows.

Is it true that the shortage of meeting rooms at NBH led to Tony Hall’s office being commandeered for a recent round of job interviews for the post of Head of BBC Radio Comedy?

There are only a handful of offices in the building. One of these belongs to the DG. Hot desking is a wonderful thing but, at this rate, how long before interview boards take place at the local Nero’s coffee shop?

At least candidates could guarantee themselves a decent caffeine fix to help soothe pre-interview nerves.

■ Off Message was thrilled to shake the hand of Hilary Mantel at a special screening of Wolf Hall’s final episode, hosted by Tony Hall.

Her attendance at the event represented another coup for the show’s creators and it underlined the novelist’s willingness to endorse Peter Kosminsky’s version of her books.

After the screening, Hall recounted how he’d made a location visit to Barrington Court, the Somerset Tudor manor house.

There, the DG lunched with Mark Rylance, wearing full Tudor garb.

“I didn’t know if I was eating with Mark Rylance or Thomas Cromwell,” recalled Hall.

Next time he is summoned to attend the Culture, Media and Sport Committee perhaps Hall should borrow one of Rylance’s black, fur-trimmed Wolf Hall costumes.

That might take the wind out of John Whittingdale’s sails.

■ And finally, huge congratulations to Lucinda Hicks, Endemol Shine’s new COO. The Dragonfly boss was one of the RTS’s Next Generation Leaders at 2013’s Cambridge Convention.

Prior to joining Dragonfly, Hicks ran business development for Shine and previously held a series of strategy and business development posts at the BBC, FremantleMedia and Channel 4.

Another gifted woman rises to the top of a super-indie…

March 2015 www.rts.org.uk Television

RTS PATRONS RTS Principal Patrons

BBC

RTS International Patrons

Discovery Corporate Services Ltd Liberty Global NBCUniversal International The Walt Disney Company

Turner Broadcasting System Inc Viacom International Media Networks YouTube

RTS Major Patrons

Accenture Channel 5 Deloitte Enders Analysis EY

FremantleMedia Fujitsu IBM IMG Studios ITN

KPMG McKinsey and Co S4C STV Group UKTV

Virgin Media YouView

RTS Patrons

Autocue Digital Television Group ITV Anglia ITV Granada

ITV London ITV Meridian ITV Tyne Tees ITV West

ITV Yorkshire ITV Wales Lumina Search PricewaterhouseCoopers

Quantel Raidió Teilifís Éireann UTV Television Vinten Broadcast

Patron HRH The Prince of Wales

Chair of RTS Trustees John Hardie

CENTRES COUNCIL

History Don McLean

President Sir Peter Bazalgette

Honorary Secretary David Lowen

Vice-Presidents Dawn Airey Sir David Attenborough OM

Honorary Treasurer Mike Green

Who’s who at the RTS

CH CVO CBE FRS

Baroness Floella Benjamin OBE Dame Colette Bowe OBE John Cresswell Mike Darcey Greg Dyke Lorraine Heggessey Ashley Highfield Rt Hon Dame Tessa Jowell MP David Lynn Sir Trevor McDonald OBE Ken MacQuarrie Trevor Phillips OBE Stewart Purvis CBE John Smith Sir Howard Stringer Mark Thompson

BSkyB

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Tim Davie Mike Green John Hardie Huw Jones Jane Lighting Graham McWilliam David Lowen Simon Pitts Graeme Thompson

EXECUTIVE

Chief Executive Theresa Wise

Channel 4

Lynn Barlow Mike Best Charles Byrne Isabel Clarke Alex Connock Gordon Cooper Tim Hartley Kristin Mason Graeme Thompson Penny Westlake James Wilson Michael Wilson

SPECIALIST GROUP CHAIRS

Archives Steve Bryant

ITV

IBC Conference Liaison Terry Marsh RTS Legends Paul Jackson

AWARDS COMMITTEE CHAIRS

Awards & Fellowship Policy David Lowen

Craft & Design Awards Cheryl Taylor

Diversity Marcus Ryder

Television Journalism Awards Stewart Purvis CBE

Early Evening Events Dan Brooke

Programme Awards David Liddiment

Education Graeme Thompson

Student Television Awards Stuart Murphy

RTS Futures Camilla Lewis

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2015

43

Save the date 16-18 September

RTS Cambridge Convention 2015

Chair: Tony Hall Director-General, BBC www.rts.org.uk