RTS Television Magazine March 2016

March 2016

Foreign drama comes in from the cold

Apply now for the 2016 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 DVDs 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 ­significant 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 16th 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 2016 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: lare Colvin, Archivist C Royal Television Society 3 Dorset Rise London EC4Y 8EN clare@rts.org.uk

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Previous recipients

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1 2 015: Oral history project by former Granada staffers Stephen Kelly and Judith Jones, with interviews published at: www.granadaland.org 2 2014: 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 3 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 4 2012: Paul Marshall researched a biography of Alan Archibald Campbell Swinton, the early visionary of all-electronic television 5 2012: Simon Vaughan digitised the 300-page ‘Black Book’, the first manual of the Marconi-EMI electronic television system, installed in 1936 6 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 7 2008/2010: Steve Arnold digitised back issues of Radio Times to make a searchable online archive of articles and schedules 8 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 9 2004: Don McLean compiled an authentically accurate audio two-CD presentation of the beginnings of television in Britain.

10 2005: John Grist wrote a biography of Grace Wyndham Goldie, the first Head of BBC Television News and Current Affairs 11 2009: Ronald Sandell, a key planner of the analogue terrestrial transmitter network, conducted research for a book, Seventy Years Before the Masts 12 2010: John Wyver conducted interviews on the presentation of theatre plays on British television

Journal of The Royal Television Society March 2016 l Volume 53/3

From the CEO Last month’s RTS Television Journalism Awards were electrifying. To say that there was a buzz at the ceremony would be an understatement.

Our energetic events team packed an extra few dozen people into the auditorium at London’s Park Lane Hilton. The increased numbers were partly a result of having introduced more jurors, including the neutral voting juries.

Huge congratulations to all the nominees and, of course, to the winners. Special thanks to Stewart Purvis, Chair of the Awards Committee, and to the night’s presenter, 5 News Tonight

anchor Matt Barbet, who made it all look completely effortless.

This is an awards ceremony where the professional rivalry is almost palpable. Few, however, could remain seated when Sky News’s Alex Crawford triumphed as Journalist of the Year for the fifth time. What an extraordinary achievement.

Details of all the winners can be found online and in this edition of Television.

Elsewhere last month, the RTS provided a showcase for the sparkling David Baddiel. A packed room at The Hospital Club heard the comedian and writer speak engagingly about his new Discovery series, David Baddiel on the Silk Road. Thanks to everyone who

Contents 5 6 8 10 12 14

Armando Iannucci’s TV Diary

A chance encounter with a flabbergasted Laura Kuenssberg and John Pienaar gives Armando Iannucci’s week a surreal edge

Continental crime wave

On Channel 4, Sky and the BBC, foreign-language drama is booming. Stuart Kemp discovers how sub-titles became hip

Lygo vs Moore: head to head

Following their recent promotions, Maggie Brown assesses the challenges facing the two most powerful people in British terrestrial TV

Adrift on the digital ocean

Pippa Shawley is underwhelmed by BBC Three’s move online and thinks other millennials will feel the same way

State of play

Owen Gibson analyses the recent sports rights deals that have seen the BBC battling against the tide

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made this event possible and to ­ avid’s interviewer, Danny Baker.

D Everyone at the Society is looking forward to the RTS Programme Awards on 22 March. This year, they are being held in partnership with Audio Network.

Finally, I’d like to draw your attention to this month’s Television diary. It’s written by one of the funniest men alive, Armando Iannucci. I dare you not to laugh out loud.

Theresa Wise

Silk, sand and skeleton crew

David Baddiel explains to the RTS why comedians make excellent travelling companions for TV viewers.

Matthew Bell reports

Cord cutting: could it happen here?

As more subscription on-demand services launch in the UK, Raymond Snoddy asks if pay-TV’s days are numbered

Our Friend in the North

Alex Connock gives a guided tour to magical realism in Manchester and other Northern media hubs

Ideas into reality

Steve Clarke discovers the vital skills required to win a place in a development team

RTS Television Journalism Awards 2016

The awards ceremony was hosted by 5 News Tonight presenter Matt Barbet at the London Hilton, Park Lane.

The winners and nominees over five pages

The hunt for the missing women

Men still dominate our TV screens. Rachel Cooke is angry that little has changed since the 1970s

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 2016

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

Cover picture: Channel 4

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 5TP

Legal notice © Royal Television Society 2016.

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 EARLY EVENING EVENT Monday 14 March

Beyond YouTube: what are the new online channels?

Panellists: Julia Barry, Editorial Director, Online Video, Sky; Richard Broughton, Research Director, Ampere Analysis; Dan’l Hewitt, Managing Director UK, Maker Studios; Ashley Mackenzie, CEO, Rightster; and Tom Thirlwall, CEO, Bigballs Media. Chair: Kate Bulkley, media commentator. 6:30pm for 6:45pm Venue: Cavendish Conference Centre, 22 Duchess Mews, London W1G 9DT ■ Book online at www.rts.org.uk RTS EARLY EVENING EVENT Tuesday 15 March

Five years at 4: Building a creative culture with Jay Hunt The Channel 4 Chief Creative Officer reflects on five years of C4’s creative renewal. The event is chaired by John Hardie, CEO of ITN. 6:15pm for 6:45pm Venue: British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG ■ Book online at www.rts.org.uk RTS AWARDS Tuesday 22 March

RTS Programme Awards 2016 In partnership with Audio Network Venue: Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London W1K 7TN ■ Callum Stott 020 7822 2822 ■ callum@rts.org.uk RTS EARLY EVENING EVENT Thursday 14 April

Poldark: anatomy of a hit

Panellists: Polly Hill, Controller of Drama Commissioing, BBC; Debbie Horsfield, Writer; Karen Thrussell, Executive Producer, Mammoth Screen; and Damien Timmer, Managing Director, Mammoth Screen. Chair: Boyd Hilton. 6:30pm for 6:45pm Venue: One Great George Street, London, SW1P 3AA ■ Book online at www.rts.org.uk

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RTS EARLY EVENING EVENT Tuesday 19 April

Big data: What's the big deal?

Local events

Panellists: Laura Chittick, Senior Manager, Accenture; Mark Connolly, Director Media Performance and Investment, Havas Media Group; Pedro Costa Fernandez, Deputy Head of Analytics, Channel 4; and Jamie West, Deputy Managing Director, Sky Media. Chaired by Torin Douglas. 6:30pm for 6:45pm Venue: The Hospital Club, 24 Endell Street, London WC2H 9HQ ■ Book online at www.rts.org.uk

BRISTOL ■ Belinda Biggam ■ belindabiggam@hotmail.com

JOINT PUBLIC LECTURE Wednesday 11 May

Getting in and getting on

RTS/IET Joint Public Lecture with Sir Paul Nurse CEO of the Francis Crick Institute and former President of the Royal Society. Event chair: Tim Davie, CEO of BBC Worldwide.

Reception sponsored by Fujitsu.

6:30pm for 7:00pm Venue: British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG ■ Book online at www.rts.org.uk RTS AWARDS Friday 3 June

RTS Student Television Awards 2016

DEVON & CORNWALL ■ Kingsley Marshall ■ Kingsley.Marshall@falmouth. co.uk EAST ANGLIA ■ Contact TBC LONDON Wednesday 20 April

With Joe Godwin, Director, BBC Academy, and Jude Winstanley, MD, The Unit List. Chair: Nadine Dereza. 6:30pm for 7:00pm Venue: ITV London Studios, Upper Ground, London SE1 9LT ■ Daniel Cherowbrier ■ daniel@cherowbrier.co.uk MIDLANDS Wednesday 16 March

Clive Myrie in conversation with Barnie Choudhury and Digital tools and technologies for journalists

RTS CONFERENCE Tuesday 27 September RTS London Conference 2016 Principal sponsor: NBCUniversal International Venue: Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU

A double-bill in partnership with BBC Academy and Digital Cities Birmingham: with Clive Myrie, London World Affairs Correspondent and Presenter, BBC, and Andy Bocking, Director of IT and Technology Delivery, BBC. 7:15pm-9:00pm Venue: The Mailbox, Birmingham B1 1RS ■ Jayne Greene 07792 776585 ■ jayne@ijmmedia.co.uk

RTS MASTERCLASS DAY Monday 14 November

NORTH EAST & THE BORDER Wednesday 30 March

Venue: BFI Southbank, London SE1 8XT

RTS Student Programme Masterclasses Venue: BFI Southbank, London SE1 8XT RTS MASTERCLASS DAY Tuesday 15 November

RTS Craft Skills Masterclasses Venue: BFI Southbank, London SE1 8XT

Networking evenings

The last Wednesday of the month, for anyone working in TV, film, computer games or digital ­production. 6:00pm onwards.

Venue: Tyneside Bar Café, Tyneside Cinema, 10 Pilgrim St, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 6QG ■ Jill Graham ■ jill.graham@blueyonder.co.uk

Your guide to upcoming national and regional events

NORTH WEST Wednesday 27 April

Crime tour

Venue: Meet at Manchester Town Hall, Albert Square, Manchester M60 2LA ■ Rachel Pinkney 07966 230639 ■ rachelpinkney@yahoo.co.uk NORTHERN IRELAND ■ John Mitchell ■ mitch.mvbroadcast@btinternet.com REPUBLIC OF IRELAND Wednesday 23 March

Student Television Awards Presented by RTÉ 2 Controller Bill Malone. 8:00pm Venue: Studio 1, RTÉ, Dublin 4 ■ Charles Byrne (353) 87251 3092 ■ byrnecd@iol.ie SCOTLAND ■ James Wilson 07899 761167 ■ james.wilson@cityofglasgowcollege.ac.uk SOUTHERN ■ Gordon Cooper ■ gordonjcooper@gmail.com THAMES VALLEY Thursday 17 March

Ultra-HDTV backwards compatibility – place your bets, please and AGM A joint event with SMPTE, introduced by Mark Horton, who is responsible for Ericsson’s encoding portfolio. 6:15 pm Venue: Pincents Manor, Calcot, Reading RG31 4UQ Wednesday 11 May

Annual NAB Review

Venue: Pincents Manor, Calcot, Reading RG31 4UQ ■ Penny Westlake ■ info@rtstvc.org.uk WALES ■ Hywel Wiliam 07980 007841 ■ hywel@aim.uk.com YORKSHIRE ■ Lisa Holdsworth 07790 145280 ■ lisa@allonewordproductions. co.uk

March 2016 www.rts.org.uk Television

TV diary A chance encounter with a flabbergasted Laura Kuenssberg and John Pienaar gives Armando Iannucci’s week a surreal edge

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’m in a writing phase at the moment, and the trouble with writing is that it doesn’t lead to an exciting week of activities. Washing out a coffee cup and shouting at Iain Duncan Smith is about as stimulating as it gets.

Of course, I could always invent a seven-day sequence of events to make it look as if I’m constantly engaged in constant executive action.

(I attended an abseiling away-day last Tuesday to discuss comedy’s future online while coming down the side of the Shard with Jon Thoday and Tony Hall. Then it was on to a Wednesdaynight screening of Amazon’s new, 22-part Peter Morgan drama about the race to design the front and back of the first pound coin.) But the lies would quickly show through.

Besides, fakery is already a major worry in broadcasting, so why add to the mountain of falsehood?

■ I’m working on several projects at the moment. I know what I want to write – I’m just not too sure who I’m writing for.

Ten years ago, if you had a comedy idea you took it to the BBC or Channel 4. Now Sky, ITV, Dave and beyond are commissioning more comedy, while increased co-production with US or European networks gives each project a potential international audience.

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2016

The real revolution, though, is the screens. Now we can get online though our TVs. Netflix, YouTube, Amazon and, yes, BBC Three look like normal channels.

And as these screens get bigger and better, the divide between film and TV becomes more blurred. Hence, movie stars and movie production values come to TV shows, while films such as The Big Short ape the style of TV documentary.

It’s great for the viewer, and makes TV creatives feel loved again, but we mustn’t forget the traditional channels.

Since the audience for quality TV is growing, world-beaters like the BBC and Channel 4 deserve encouragement and expansion – not Westminster’s unambitious talk of restriction that seems to be the popular currency at the moment.

■ Talking of government editorialising, new guidelines are being issued on how the BBC should conduct itself during the EU referendum.

Of course, the BBC should be fair and balanced (I think there’s a little too much Ann Widdecombe on the BBC for my liking: she could do with savage cuts), but my hope is that even-handedness doesn’t lead to uneventfulness.

Too many voters are put off by interviews that are so painfully balanced that the interviewer sounds

like Gollum talking to himself. “Mrs X is right, isn’t she, when she says that Europe is an unrivalled marketplace of ideas and freedom? But Mrs X, don’t you think Mr Y has a point when he says Europe is a nasty cesspit of Slavic scroungers? But surely that’s racist, Mr Y? Good point from Mr Y, Mrs X, it isn’t. Goodnight.”

■ The one bit of excitement this week was filming with Vic Reeves for a BBC documentary that he’s making about the Dada movement.

The Dadaists were radical nonsensicals and, for reasons too complicated to go into here, Reeves and I shot our discussion in the set of The Daily Politics, while cutting words out of newspapers to make a random poem.

It all ended with him chasing me through the BBC’s Millbank newsroom shouting “What is Dada?” while I ran away from him, crying “I’m not going to tell him” into my phone.

I don’t think any of them had been warned. John Pienaar hit the deck and Laura Kuenssberg looked more startled than she does when interviewing Iain Duncan Smith. But at least my week turned out to be more interesting than I thought.

Armando Iannucci OBE is a satirist, writer, director and radio producer.

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BBC

Spiral

Continental crime wave

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ubtitles, sass and sex are the latest must-haves for broadcasters who are serious about satisfying their audiences. British viewers’ expanding appetite for foreign-language shows has taken in the mafia in Gomorrah on Sky Atlantic, the chilly Icelandic landscape of Trapped on BBC Four and the visceral drugs drama Prófugos on Channel 4’s new online service, Walter Presents.

The first episode of Walter Presents’ first show to be broadcast on Channel 4 – the cold war spy drama Deutschland 83 – garnered a consolidated audience of 2.5 million in January.

These are healthy numbers for a Channel 4 show and justify the investment that several broadcasters are making in subtitled drama.

“Over the coming years, you will see much more foreign drama shot on a scale that will have global appeal,” says Phil Edgar-Jones, Director of Sky Arts, a long-standing home for subtitled drama. “Many more people have cottoned on to thinking of it simply as really good storytelling, rather than niche, subtitled drama.”

Walter Presents epitomises the

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Imported shows

On Channel 4, Sky and the BBC, foreignlanguage drama is booming. Stuart Kemp discovers how sub-titles became hip growing mainstream appeal of foreign-­ language drama. The venture is a partnership between Channel 4 and Global Series Network (GSN), an acquisitions and distribution company founded and managed by Walter Iuzzolino, Jason Thorp and Jo McGrath.

Born in Italy and raised on a diet of dubbed drama from around the globe, Iuzzolino is the Creative Director and force majeure behind the service. The TV enthusiast is a former commissioner at Channel 5 and Channel 4. His credits include hits such as Channel 4’s Embarrassing Bodies and Grand Designs.

He cashed in the equity stake he had as Creative Director of Betty, the

independent production company bought by Discovery Communications in 2011. The deal was reported to be worth around £10m.

Iuzzolino decided to plough his savings and time into his passion for quality, foreign-language drama and build a library for GSN. He then hawked the idea of a dedicated service around London’s media village.

Channel 4 moved fastest. Chief Creative Officer Jay Hunt immediately saw the sense of investing in Iuzzolino’s passion.

At the time, Hunt said it would have been churlish to resist a package of hand-picked international program­ mes from someone who had locked himself into a room for two years to watch 3,500 hours of television.

Together, they came up with the ­Walter Presents branding for the partnership.

This enabled Channel 4 to launch a service that it hoped would reflect the world back to a British audience and help to deliver the channel’s commitment to diversity.

Aiming to make it the British Library of quality, foreign-language entertainment, the ad-supported online service

makes entire seasons available at once.

Viewers can binge-view entire series, presented as “box sets” to stream. Other shows will premiere on the More 4 channel in a regular Friday-night slot, with the most prized acquisitions running on Channel 4 itself.

“In a world of Netflix, Amazon Prime and other pay-TV subscription services, Channel 4 is making a statement with this. It is mainstream and not elitist in any way,” Iuzzolino insists.

As with the shows offered by other UK broadcasters who have discovered the power of subtitled drama, Walter’s shows are eclectic and extend far beyond Nordic noir.

The Danish supernatural drama Heartless is set in a co-ed boarding school, complete with sexual tension, gore and scares. Clan is a Belgian black comedy about five sisters and an evil dead husband, while Sr Ávila, a show focused on an insurance man by day, hit man by night, hails from Mexico.

This growth in foreign-language drama began a decade ago, in 2006, when the BBC showed the Paris-set police and legal drama Spiral. Subsequently, 9:00pm on Saturday night became a regular BBC Four slot for international drama. The industry watched with interest.

“I thought that, if Spiral finds an audience, it would be time for me to make my foreign-language drama dream a TV reality,” say Iuzzolino.

The first season notched up around 150,000 viewers per episode but slowly became a critical and cult hit. The fifth season, broadcast in 2015, regularly attracted an audience of 1 million per episode.

“There has been a big [positive] change in the number of people watching these pieces and enjoying them,” says Sue Deeks, the BBC’s Head of Programme Acquisition.

The BBC recently finished running the third season of Scandinavian police procedural noir The Bridge, which consolidated at almost 2 million viewers.

The broadcaster spent £66m on programme acquisition across all channels and outlets in 2014-15, up from £59m the previous financial year.

“There is more competition compared with 10 years ago because, at that time, people hadn’t realised the potential of these pieces,” says Deeks. “There’s a lot of programming out there.”

Sky Arts’ interest in imported subtitled drama goes back several years. Hard, a French comedy about a woman who

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2016

inherits her husband’s porn empire, aired in 2013. The channel also snapped up the first two seasons of Danish family saga The Legacy and will be home to the third and final season.

“One of the challenges for Sky Arts is to find [good quality], long-running series,” says Edgar-Jones. “A lot of what we do is glorious one-offs or in three parts. Therefore, to have something that is a consistent series offering, that gets people to come to the channel and try other things, is efficient for the channel.”

Sky Arts’ highest-rating subtitled success to date is Occupied, a glossy and slick thriller about Russia invading Norway to take control of the country’s oil reserves.

Barb figures show that it hovered around the 100,000 mark, a healthy tally for the channel.

“We found that we got small, but really passionate, audiences that would get into the programmes,” says EdgarJones. “As a broadcaster working with a fairly limited acquisitions budget, it was pretty efficient to buy in.”

Not everything works. “We dipped our toe into foreign comedy, too, with Norwegian comedy Dag. But it’s hard to translate foreign comedy for a UK audience,” admits Edgar-Jones.

Next up is a largely untapped reservoir of quality programme from Asia.

Expect shows from South Korea, Japan and Malaysia to hit the radar soon.

Iuzzolino counsels buyers to watch entire series, not just pilots, because shows can turn out to be duds. His three criteria for choosing – a blockbuster hit in the country of origin, preferably award-winning and blessed with critical acclaim – guide his choice.

What is now beyond doubt is that subtitles are no longer an audience turn-off. They may even inspire greater concentration. After all, you can’t be distracted by your phone or tablet. If you look away you won’t know what the hell is going on.

“A lot of what we do is written-word stuff, in terms of how we communicate with texting and email, so people have got used to it as part of the experience,” says Edgar-Jones.

Deeks suggests that “it is also akin to people reading the ticker along the bottom of news bulletins. People are quite used to looking at different parts of the screen.”

All of this is important if a beautiful, but troubled, supernatural Danish predator is trying to suck you into their world of sex, sass and subtitles.

PEOPLE HAVE COTTONED ON TO THINK OF IT SIMPLY AS REALLY GOOD STORYTELLING, RATHER THAN NICHE, SUBTITLED DRAMA

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The job: Lygo

Terrestrial-TV

Lygo vs Moore

Head to head Following their recent promotions, Maggie Brown assesses the challenges facing the two most powerful people in British terrestrial TV

Kevin Lygo controls ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, ITV Encore and ITV Be, the commissioning teams and scheduling. He reviews how the channels are run and targeted, in conjunction with the group’s advertising team.

The company has reaffirmed ITV2 as a young-adult station following the arrival of Family Guy from BBC Three last month. The content budget is £1bn, with around £700m devoted to ITV. This is less than BBC One spends, but not accepted as an excuse for ITV1’s drop in audience share to 15% (against BBC One’s 22%). ITV1 remains the UK’s most-watched commercial channel, providing nine out of 10 programmes that attract more than 3 million viewers.

Lygo brings a ruthless touch to reversing the drift. His willingness to make changes fast was evident in the departures of Elaine Bedell and Richard Klein, commissioners of entertainment and factual, respectively.

Building a team to plug gaps in factual entertainment and high-end drama is key. But he must also ensure ITV Studios, headed by decisive former C4 collaborator Julian Bellamy, delivers a solid chunk of ITV’s output – at or above the current 62%. ITV’s acquired producers make big-­hitting shows, from Poldark to The Graham Norton Show.

The strategy: Lygo

The CV: Lygo

In February, Kevin Lygo, 58, became ITV’s Director of Television, following the exit of Peter Fincham after eight years in the role.

2010-16 Lygo served as Director of ITV Studios, acquiring 14 production companies and establishing a robust presence in the US. He implemented CEO Adam Crozier and outgoing Chair Archie Norman’s strategy to rebalance ITV to make it less dependent on ad revenue.

2003-10 As Channel 4 Director of Programmes, he launched More4 and hired popular stars such as Paul O’Grady, but allowed Big Brother to sprawl, then cancelled it in 2009. Joined ITV after the Channel 4 CEO job went to David Abraham in 2010.

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ITV

Kevin Lygo 2001-03 As Channel 5 Director of Programmes, gave prominence to arts to temper the station’s brash reputation.

1998-2001 Channel 4 Head of Entertainment and Comedy, a key hire by CEO Michael Jackson. Hits included The 11 O’Clock Show (Ali G); Smack the Pony; So Graham Norton; and Dom Joly’s Trigger Happy TV. Masterminded the successful launch of E4.

1981-97 BBC comedy script writer, general trainee, entertainment producer, Head of Independent Commissioning Group; Head of Entertainment Lygo studied music at Durham University. He is an expert in Islamic art and Nepalese bronzes. Famed for witty one liners and lunching at Pizza Express. He works at a clutter-free desk, clearing his emails daily.

The aim is to reinvigorate ITV in all genres. The schedules are seen as relics of the 1990s. A key issue is how to handle elderly entertainment shows, headed by Simon Cowell’s The X Factor, now in the last year of its contract. It is likely to survive, refreshed, while replacements are sought.

Ninja Warrior UK and Long Lost Family have performed satisfactorily. The Voice UK, made by ITV Studio’s Talpa, will fill the former Dancing on Ice January slot in 2017 – the decisions to chop Dancing on Ice and GMTV are now viewed as mistakes. New, high-rating factual entertainment is a priority.

ITV drama needs drastic restoration and this will take a minimum of two years. Tasks include finding a replacement for Downton Abbey, more returning series, alongside Midsomer Murders, Scott & Bailey and Endeavour, plus 8:00pm fare.

The failure of Jekyll and Hyde and Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands, worries about the revival of Cold Feet, and the lack of glossy international co-­ productions underscore the need for change and ambition.

The job: Moore

Charlotte Moore finds herself in an exceptionally powerful new role as Controller of BBC TV Channels. Yet she is remarkable for rarely missing a preview screening or launch, or the chance to mix afterwards with producers.

She is a highly visible creative leader, a personable executive who likes to smile and does not stand on her ego.

Launches of Great Barrier Reef with David Attenborough, War and Peace and Line of Duty all find places in her diary.

Her understanding of the difficulties faced by programme-makers is evident and crucial to her style of sympathetic leadership. She was selected by Director-General Tony Hall in a swift internal contest, ahead of Kim Shillinglaw.

However, the move has created internal controversy and uncertainty, and unsettled genre commissioners and executives working to her. She presides over a TV content budget in excess of £1.4bn.

The move was partly designed to make it easier to switch programmes around between channels, encourage greater co-ordination and planning, and to spread repeats between BBC One and BBC Two. It also saved money on executive salaries.

BBC One has flourished under her.

Moore has been able to extend its public service range and demonstrate that audiences will turn up for carefully chosen, hard-hitting documentaries at 9:00pm, and for fresh, emotional domestic drama (Dr Foster) and quirky experiments (Dickensian). These are all important in a period overshadowed

by Charter renewal.

The strategy: Moore

The CV: Moore

In January, Charlotte Moore, 47, was promoted to Controller of BBC TV Channels BBC One, Two and Four, and iPlayer Content, a newly created position. The post of BBC Two Controller was abolished.

2013-16 Controller of BBC One, taking over from Danny Cohen, following a spell running BBC Daytime. Her innovations included Peter Kay’s Car Share, launched on iPlayer, and evening documentaries. Her appointment signalled a rising appreciation of collaborative team players.

2012 Given responsibility for all BBC Knowledge programmes, including BBC Three’s Our War and mental health season It’s a Mad World.

2009 BBC Commissioning Editor of

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2016

BBC

Charlotte Moore Documentaries, across all channels, in-house and independents. Credits included The Great British Bake Off, Inside Claridges, The Choir and The Tube.

2006 Joined BBC Documentaries.

2004 Head of Documentaries, rising to Director of Contemporary Factual Content at Ideal World Productions (IWP) 2002 Producer/Director, IWP, on shows such as Location, Location, Location.

1990 Atlantic Productions, after reading history at Bristol University.

Married to freelance TV cameraman Johann Perry. Following coverage in The Daily Mail, she resigned as Company Secretary of Perry Images on 28 January.

Owned by her husband, it was set up nine years ago. The BBC said her husband’s work did not represent a conflict of interest, as she does not hire crew.

Moore is trusted with making sense of a massive overhaul of the BBC’s services, driven by Hall, which partly explains her elevation. Far-reaching changes are in hand for the system of commissioning content, bringing television, radio and online together in interest and age groups, as pioneered by BBC Arts & Music two years ago. The new approach will bracket BBC Three online and Radio 1 together.

The emollient Moore will be expected to spearhead the changes and adapt output to the revolution in viewing habits. A further aim is to balance a concentration of power by devolving decisions to commissioners, to ensure a wider range of tastes are involved in commissioning.

While BBC One’s budget has been enhanced with extra funds for drama, the backdrop is cost cutting, with £700m of savings required overall by 2021-22. Moore, running the most visible channels, will play a key role in defending the corporation’s role in popular entertainment and BBC-led, co-produced dramas.

A HIGHLY VISIBLE CREATIVE LEADER ... WHO LIKES TO SMILE AND DOES NOT STAND ON HER EGO 9

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Adrift on the digital ocean

nyone who tuned in for BBC Three’s final broadcast in the early hours of 16 February might have noticed the youth channel go out with a whimper, not a bang.

Not for BBC Three, any self-congratulatory run-down of the best commissions in its 13-year history. Instead, a repeat of Gavin & Stacey was followed by a trailer for new, online drama Thirteen and it all ended with a test card announcing that the channel had moved.

Perhaps the lack of fanfare was part of the brand’s emphatic declaration that it wasn’t closing, but moving.

Yes, in case you missed the news, BBC Three, the youth-focused brand that brought us Little Britain, Being Human and, er, Danny Dyer: I Believe in UFOs, has left the building and gone to the Cloud.

Where detractors of the move saw declining opportunites for young people to be represented on TV, the channel’s Digital Controller, Damian Kavanagh, promised freedom for audiences and more money for commissioning new-form content.

For those of us who spent our teenage years tuning in to late-night repeats of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps after a night on the Bacardi Breezers, the idea of consciously going online to find post-pub viewing seems unlikely.

And perhaps this is why BBC Three has recalibrated, separating its content into two pillars of destination viewing: Makes Me Laugh covers scripted comedy and personality-led entertainment; and Makes Me Think includes drama, current affairs, authored docs and flagship factual.

According to Kavanagh, 80% of BBC Three’s budget will be spent on longform content, which will eventually make its way onto either BBC One or BBC Two. The remaining 20% will be spent on multimedia content, ranging from quizzes and listicles to picture galleries

10

BBC Three

Pippa Shawley is underwhelmed by BBC Three’s move online and thinks other millennials will feel the same way and gifs, all hopefully reaching young digital audiences.

Although it’s still early days for BBC Three 2.0, the world appears to have continued turning – despite the demise of the 60 Seconds news updates and ad-free runs of Family Guy (which was poached by ITV2).

For a brand that claims it’s trying to reach young audiences where they hang out, it’s quite an effort to access this hot new digital content.

Instead of simply turning on the TV and flicking to the designated channel, you now have to contend with BBC Three’s seizure-inducing website (hot pink clashing with a bile green background).

And therein lies another problem for BBC Three. Without its linear channel

I’VE FOUND MY HEART SINKING EVERY TIME I HOP PAST ITV2 IN THE EPG TO BE MET BY THE SAME TEST CARD TELLING ME THAT BBC THREE HAS MOVED ONLINE

to anchor viewers to its content, it must now directly compete with everything else that’s on the internet, from Netflix and YouTube to its iPlayer stablemates, such as The Great British Bake Off. While it’s true that young people are watching more content online, it increasingly feels as if there is simply too much online content to keep on top of. It’s exhausting, trying to keep up with Orange Is the New Black, Making a Murderer and Zoella’s latest make-up tutorial, without having to contend with BBC Three’s 10-minute titbits, such as The Ladventures of Thomas Gray.

It’s no wonder that the number of nightclubs in the UK has halved in the past decade. We’re all staying inside watching Better Call Saul, while tweeting our pithy observations, instead.

When it was announced in November that BBC Three’s linear channel was to close, the RTS digital team hit the streets of London to gain public opinion about the news.

The views were mixed, particularly within BBC Three’s target audience of 16- to 34-year-olds. Older people, it seemed, were not concerned about the channel’s closure; many had never watched it, aware of the fact that it “wasn’t for them”.

Younger people tended to fall into one of two camps: those who would miss the ease of flicking over to BBC Three while watching their television; or those who claimed to do most of their viewing online anyway. The latter thought the move would simply compliment their existing habits of flitting between YouTube, Netflix and iPlayer.

Outside of London, a friend in Devon bemoaned the inevitable buffering that she has to contend with when streaming. It’s something that the BBC Trust mentioned in its report on the final decision to move BBC Three online.

The Trust recognised that “no condition can be imposed that will provide this audience with access to the full range of BBC Three content once it transfers online.” The Trust hoped that

the Government’s aim to have superfast broadband in 95% of homes and businesses by the end of 2017 would clear up this issue.

Since the linear channel closed, I’ve found my heart sinking every time I hop past ITV2 in the EPG to be met by the same test card telling me that BBC Three has moved online. Before, I might have found Don’t Tell the Bride or Snog, Marry, Avoid to ease me in to my evening’s viewing.

Now, it’s a toss up between The One Show and The Great Interior Design Challenge, both making me inclined to reach for the off button if only I had the will power.

It does not occur to me, yet, that I should fire up iPlayer and check out BBC Three’s latest offerings.

At work, I scroll through its social media accounts. The Twitter feed is full of retweeted praise for documentary series Life and Death Row, which

I saw and liked, albeit on BBC One following the Ten O’Clock News.

Another night, I start watching series 3 of Cuckoo, the sitcom starring Greg Davies, Helen Baxendale and Twilight actor Taylor Lautner.

Again, I watch it on BBC One after the news. It occurs to me that at this rate, I will begin to resemble the sort of pale, nocturnal beings that Lautner used to dwell among in the vampire trilogy.

By day three of my new viewing timetable, I have finally accepted that I will have to watch some BBC Three content online. Where I would normally spend my lunchtime catching up on All4 (the office internet seems to cope with its incessant advertising better than my home wi-fi), I choose Our World War, a dramatised account of the opening days of the First World War. It is harrowing. I hope my colleagues don’t notice me flinch as another limb goes flying across the Belgian mud.

As the week draws to a close, my social life picks up, leaving little time to browse the various on-demand websites at my disposal for something to watch. I’m intrigued to see that BBC Three is live-tweeting reactions to the Brit Awards, which are being shown over on ITV. Still, Kavanagh did tell Victoria Derbyshire that he wanted to “fish where the fish were”.

At the weekend, an advert for a blog called Find the Girl appears. It’s a tie-in to Thirteen, the new drama about a woman’s escape after 13 years in captivity. Despite the trailer for the show popping up during primetime on BBC One, I’ve yet to tune in.

Perhaps if it was on TV, I’d stumble across it one evening and get hooked. As it is, I add it to my pile of things to catch up on, right after Fresh Meat, Vinyl and Girls.

BBC

BBC Three sitcom Cuckoo also hangs out on BBC One

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11

Television sport

Owen Gibson analyses the recent sports rights deals that have seen the BBC battling against the tide

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arbara Slater, the Director of BBC Sport, likes to bang the drum for digital. Even so, last year she found the time to blog on the corporation’s website just six times.

Four of those six posts apologetically explained why the BBC had been forced to cede flagship rights and was likely to make further cuts in the future.

The posts unpicked why the BBC, after six decades, had to surrender Open golf and also give up on a, perhaps vainglorious, bid to roll back the years by making the Beeb the exclusive home of Formula 1.

The gloom deepened in November, when Director-General Tony Hall said that sport would have to take its share of pain amid planned cuts of £150m.

That BBC Sport had been earmarked for a further £35m in savings led some onlookers, including this one, to wonder whether sport was perpetually doomed to be undervalued by the BBC’s top table.

There has been better news recently.

The BBC found a way to hold on to the free-to-air rights to the summer and winter Olympics until 2024, following a £110m-plus deal with Discovery.

Yet even this was underscored with a sense that it was battling to hold back the tide. The corporation has given up exclusive rights to the 2018 and 2020 Olympics, effectively agreeing to become a junior partner.

The BBC, which fought off competition from free-to-air rivals, including ITV, will still be home to all the biggest live moments. Discovery’s Eurosport, however, will be able to claim that it is the only place to follow all the action.

Recently, there has been a merrygo-round of other rights shifts among commercial free-to-air broadcasters, who are keenly aware of sport’s value as an appointment to view in a digital, time-shifted age.

The BBC’s share of Formula 1 coverage has moved to Channel 4 from 2016

12

State of play and, in turn, ITV has, from next year, exclusively snapped up the biggest dates in the horse-racing calendar (which moved in 2012 to Channel 4 from the BBC amid much hoopla).

Meanwhile, the return of the FA Cup to the BBC (in conjunction with BT Sport) has been judged a success. It reflects a growing trend towards uneasy co-operation and sharing.

For around a decade, it seemed that the relationship between the pay-TV broadcasters and their free-to-air brethren had settled into something of a cosy equilibrium.

Sky, having seen off competitors from OnDigital to Setanta, had helped itself to all the live rights that it required to keep its numbers trending upwards.

From Premier League football to exclusive international cricket, it bagged all those rights that would drive its business. In the process, it

pioneered numerous innovations.

Meanwhile, the BBC cemented its hold on the sort of major events that confirmed it as the place where the nation comes together.

The corporation continued its investment in Olympics, World Cups, the annual Middle England love-in at Wimbledon and the Six Nations. At the same time, ITV concentrated on live Champions League and international football, plus the Rugby World Cup. But that was BBTS – Before BT Sport.

The new arrival went head-to-head with Sky for sports rights in a battle that went beyond attracting viewers. Fundamentally, it was a means of battling over lucrative triple-play customers. As a result, the cost of live Premier League rights soared to a staggering £5.1bn over three years.

In snaring the majority of those rights, Sky was forced to make some

Glamorgan Cricket Club

England vs India, the NatWest International T20 2014

tough choices elsewhere – potentially opening up new ground for others.

The tremors reached way beyond the pay-TV battleground. With the BBC also engaged in a bitter battle over the terms of its Charter renewal against a hostile Government and press, the tectonic plates have shifted noticeably.

This, in turn, has presented both challenges and opportunities. ITV, having lost live Champions League football to BT Sport, flirted strongly with challenging the BBC for the rights to Premier League highlights, but decided not to bid.

Instead, it has cannily collaborated with the BBC to share Six Nations rights, securing the rights to the majority of the more commercially lucrative England games, and taken the previously mentioned brave bet on horse racing.

This, then, is the shape of televised sport in 2016. In a world of fluid viewing

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2016

across a range of devices, sport retains the power to gather a crowd in front of a big screen at an appointed time.

Even a highlights show such as Match of the Day, reborn in its 50th year, has become a kind of event programme, bigger than the sum of its parts.

Not every gamble works. Channel 5’s bold move to capture highlights to Football League matches and shift the show to Saturday night primetime has struggled for viewers.

Yet sport remains the lingua franca of the modern age, the prism through which social life is mediated and discussed. And it retains a huge pull on advertisers, one reason why ITV has gravitated towards racing and rugby.

The free-to-air terrestrial broadcasters have been aided by the Government, in one respect. In December, an almost-­ overlooked aspect of sports minister Tracey Crouch’s review was to preserve

the protected list of “crown jewels” events reserved for free-to-air TV. London 2012 was the much-cited highpoint of the BBC’s commitment to all-singing, all-dancing coverage of the major events that bring the nation together across the full range of its platforms and services: from 26 interactive channels covering every sport to associated spin-off programming. The diminished deal with Discovery seems to reflect its new place in the world.

Discovery, which has signed triple-­ jump world record holder Jonathan Edwards from the BBC to front its coverage, will be able to market itself as the only place to see every last hop and skip.

For ITV and Channel 4 – which made such a ratings and reputational success of its Paralympic coverage in 2012 – it is a case of back to the future.

Channel 4’s Formula 1 coverage of half the races over the course of the season, under the same terms as the BBC’s existing deal, is a bold move.

Again, advertisers will pay to reach a guaranteed audience of petrolheads.

But, as with the BBC, the challenge will be to take the sport beyond its heartland of hardcore fans.

Meanwhile, technology is opening up new avenues, not only for the pay-TV giants but for the terrestrial broadcasters, too. A recent deal between the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the BBC for online clips and highlights to complement televised coverage might point one way to the future.

And sports governing bodies are being more sophisticated in weighing up the huge income boost that pay-TV provides with the profile they crave.

There is a continuing debate over whether cricket has been helped or harmed by the England and Wales Cricket Board’s decision, following the epic 2005 Ashes series, to move coverage of England’s matches exclusively to pay-TV.Sky has won awards galore for its innovative programming.

Cricket fans can gorge on wall-to-wall coverage that is more insightful and more stirring than ever before. But there are still many who that feel something has been lost along the way and that the game may rue its decision in the long term.

Such are the calculations that governing bodies and broadcasters must make amid the shifting sands of a sports rights market that can be as competitive and unpredictable as anything on the field of play.

13

The hunt for the missing women Diversity

Men still dominate our TV screens.

Rachel Cooke is angry that little has changed since the 1970s Happy Valley

I

wanted to be a journalist from the age of eight, a burning ambition that was clear for all to see. Not only did I own a John Bull printing set, I also “published” two journals, a newspaper called The Interest and a magazine whose title was (some prescience, here) Hello.

People sometimes ask where this urge came from. When they do, I always give the same answer: Doctor Who. In those days, my number one heroine was Doctor Who’s assistant, Sarah Jane Smith (the late Elisabeth Sladen), a plucky, determined young woman. I adored her clothes, haircut and quivering lower lip.

But these things, lovely as they were, paled into insignificance beside what really mattered to me. She was an investigative journalist.

14

Apparently, this was work so exciting, not even the Doctor (then played

by Tom Baker) could induce her to give it up. Travelling through time and space was thrilling, but as she sometimes made clear, it was as nothing to the rush of breaking a story.

It was of Sarah Jane Smith that I thought as I read the latest research into gender and television carried out by the Communication Research Group and commissioned by Channel 4.

Forty years on, we might have expected the Sarah Janes on TV, whether real or fictional, to have grown more autonomous (I didn’t notice it at the time, but poor Miss Smith was, in the end, a creature of the 1970s, there mostly to do a man’s bidding). More importantly, they should have multiplied to the point where they’re hardly worth our notice. But, no.

This study looked at prime-time programmes aired on BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, and Sky 1 over three months in 2015. It concluded that, overall, men are still twice as likely to appear on television as women.

When women do appear, moreover, they are five times more likely than men to suffer what the report’s authors call “low level sexism” (that is, to find themselves patronised, or the butt of feeble jokes).

Does it go without saying that, when we talk about women on TV, we are referring, in the main, to younger women? For the avoidance of doubt, yes, we are.

Between 40% and 45% of all the people under 40 who appear on TV are women. The proportion drops to 30% for people aged 40 to 49; and just a

BBC

quarter of TV appearances by those aged 50-69 are by women.

Do these figures make me angry? Of course they do – though I’m slightly amazed to discover just how angry.

I’ve been writing about television on a weekly basis since 2007 – so I should be used to this stuff by now.

It occurs to me, heart sinking, that my fondness for such series as, say, Silk, in which Maxine Peake played a brilliant, workaholic barrister, and Happy Valley, in which Sarah Lancashire stars as a copper who truly cares about her job, have worked as a kind of opiate, temporarily blinding me to the massed ranks of men elsewhere.

In the moment when a Sally Wainwright (Happy Valley, Scott & Bailey) character is in the middle of a blazing row with her (male) boss, or Phoebe WallerBridge (the writer and star of the Channel 4 comedy Crashing) has induced me to hoot with laughter, it is perhaps too easy to forget the many casual (and not-so-casual) slights to one’s sex elsewhere.

Do the producers of The Night Manager think that, by casting Olivia Colman as the tale’s spymaster (in the Le Carré novel from which the series is adapted, this character is a man), we won’t notice that all the other women are little more than very shag-able cardboard cut outs?

This realisation is all the more disappointing given that I was one of the very few critics to dare to point out that Allan Cubitt’s much-lauded serial-killer series, The Fall, hides its essential misogyny behind a ton of good acting and the occasional pseudo-feminist nod to DSI Stella Gibson’s position as a lone woman in authority.

Open Radio Times at random and really study the listings, and you can get a more vivid sense of the scale of this than statistics afford.

So many male writers, directors and producers; so many male stars; so many male quiz show panellists (in spite of the best efforts of the likes of Danny Cohen). Our major news bulletins – the BBC Ten O’Clock News, ITV’s News at Ten and Channel 4 News – are all anchored by men. Newsnight’s main presenter is a man.

Think about it for a more than a minute, and it is simply bizarre that every night, a reporter reads out the sports results as they pertain, almost exclusively, to games played by men; the fact that it is now, sometimes, a woman reporter to whom this job falls only makes it, to me, all the stranger.

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2016

And woe betide that this woman should do anything other than offer the facts. When Lynsey Hipgrave, a BT Sports presenter, had the temerity to comment on the taking of a penalty by Lionel Messi during a La Liga match in February, she was trolled online.

“We need sandwiches, not opinions,” is one of the more printable messages she received. Hipgrave herself quietly pointed out what had happened on Twitter, and then retreated, not wanting, it would seem, to make a fuss.

The study carried out by the Communication Research Group, incidentally, found that only 2% of sports presenters, pundits and studio guests are women.

I could go on and on like this. But I won’t. What’s important is why this imbalance – this, for women, invisibility – is something we should care about.

On one level, of course, it’s a matter of simple fairness. The world of television should, by now, be wide open to women. How much talent are controllers and commissioners willing to squander in their failure to make the playing field more level?

The broadcasters’ ratings might even improve, were they to widen their vision a little. Too many women viewers feel shut out of television; some are disgusted by it. Here comes another mutilated female body, we think, as the latest police procedural kicks off – at which point, we switch off and do something else instead.

Above all, we need to think about the images we’re offering to young women. I know the power of a good female role model; such a creature, believe me, can do more for a girl’s ambition than any careers advisor.

When Sarah Jane was retired, I transferred my adoration to Inspector Jean Darblay, the character at the heart of the BBC’s Juliet Bravo, which ran between 1980 and 1985. I didn’t want to be a policewoman half so much as I wanted to be a journalist, but I loved the fact that all the men had to call her “Ma’am”.

And then, of course, just as I disappeared to university, there was Press Gang, Steven Moffat’s ITV series about a school newspaper, whose editor, played by a young Julia Sawalha, was called Lynda.

I owe my working life, which has given me so much, to lots of different people and opportunities. But its seeds were sown in a Sheffield living room, where I saw her on the small screen: the future me.

DO THESE FIGURES MAKE ME ANGRY? OF COURSE THEY DO – THOUGH I’M SLIGHTLY AMAZED TO DISCOVER JUST HOW ANGRY

15

Silk, sand and skeleton crew Documentary

David Baddiel explains to the RTS why comedians make excellent travelling companions for TV viewers. Matthew Bell reports

V

ictoria Wood, recalled David Baddiel, “once said: ‘I’m a comedian, I’m over 50, I have to do a travel documentary.’

She’s right – that seems to be the case.” Now, the comedian and novelist has followed the same well-trodden path with a four-part travelogue, David Baddiel on the Silk Road, which takes him on a 6,000km journey from Xi’an in China to Istanbul along the 2,000-year-old trade route.

In the series, he is chased by wild dogs, collects pigeon poo to make gunpowder, watches an ancient version of polo played with a headless goat, milks camels and gets drunk with some of Uzbekistan’s last Jews.

He even gets to play some football.

Baddiel attracted a capacity audience to an RTS event at The Hospital Club in London to discuss the programme, which kicked off on the Discovery Channel on 21 February. He was interviewed by fellow writer and broadcaster Danny Baker.

“You brought back an absolute crackerjack of a series. It’s a very brave thing to do and expertly carried off,”

said Baker, who has recently tasted TV success with the dramatisation of his early life in the BBC Two comedy Cradle to Grave.

Baddiel is a prolific writer, having penned both adult and children’s ­novels, as well as the screenplay to the film The Infidel.

He made his name on television with the BBC Two sketch show The Mary Whitehouse Experience in 1990.

This was followed by BBC Two/ITV series Fantasy Football League and ITV’s free-form talk show Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned, which ran until 2005.

Over the past decade, Baddiel has made comparatively little TV, limiting himself largely to appearances on panel shows and the odd politics programme.

In 2012, however, he travelled to Ethiopia with comedian Hugh Dennis for the BBC Two series, World’s Most Dangerous Roads.

At the RTS event, Baddiel argued that there were advantages to a comedian, rather than a historian, making travel programmes.

“The value is that you can communicate and hopefully lighten sometimes quite big and heavy information, and

I WANTED TO HAVE SOME AUTHORSHIP, SO I SAID EARLY ON THAT I WOULD NOT FOLLOW AN EXACT SCRIPT

16

David Baddiel on the Silk Road react in ways that will make it an entertaining programme as well as an educational and informative one,” he said.

Baddiel jumped at the chance to make the Discovery show. “I have reached a stage in my life where I want to do work that I’m going to enjoy. And I knew I would enjoy an adventure like this,” he said.

“When I watch Blade Runner there’s a bit where Rutger Hauer [the replicant Roy Batty] is dying and says to Harrison Ford, ‘I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe’. My basic urge was to travel into the unknown.”

He added: “The Silk Road itself turned out to be incredibly fascinating; I didn’t know anything about it before I started.”

With much of Asia in the grip of a resurgent, and often radical, form of Islam, Baker asked whether the comedian’s Jewish heritage ever became a problem while making the series.

“They’re a bit Borat some of those areas, though I never saw the running of the Jew,” Baddiel joked.

“I am a fundamentalist atheist but have always been very out about being

Discovery

Slow trek from China to Turkey

Jewish,” he continued, “but I’m not an atheist like Richard Dawkins, because I quite like religion. You can’t understand humanity without understanding religion and the need for it.

“I think there’s lots of magic, storytelling and mysticism in religion and I’m very proud of being Jewish for cultural reasons, but I don’t believe in God.” In Bukhara, which sits on the northern Silk Route in Uzbekistan, Baddiel visited the last remaining Jewish family in the city. “This family decided to stay, they told me, because they wanted the Uzbekistani Jewish tradition to survive,” he said.

In the series, Baddiel celebrated his shared heritage with the family by getting blind drunk on vodka.

On returning home from Asia, Baker asked whether Baddiel felt the experience had changed him.

“You know me quite well and one of the things about me is that I am not a very changeable person,” said Baddiel.

“Essentially, I am the same bloke almost entirely as I was when I was 16.

“The only thing that has really changed me internally is having

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2016

children, but, having said that, I do look back to the time of doing [the programme] as incredibly emotional.

“It sounds a bit pretentious, but [I was] immersing myself in the history of the road and feeling, a little bit, part of this huge wave of humanity.”

But, asked Baker, “Is there a sense of the preposterous, [and you thinking] ‘What am I doing here?’”

“Constantly. You’re amazed and you feel slightly absurd. Without wishing to over-brand it – Discovery has this ‘Make your world bigger’ thing, which they made me say in every fucking place – you do realise when doing [a programme] like this that it is a very big world and one is very small.”

Baddiel has been bitten by the travel bug and would like to make more travel series. “I’m interested, without wishing to overdo the Jewish thing, in the history of Nazi-hunting,” he said.

“I’ve never seen a programme that looks at South America in terms of the traffic in Nazis after the war, the channels to places such as Paraguay and Argentina, and how they were caught, – and sometimes not caught.”

Pioneer Productions filmed the four one-hour episodes in China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey over 15 weeks in the middle of 2015.

David Baddiel travelled lightly, with just the Director, Glenn Swift; Sound Recordist Phil Bax; Assistant Producer Henry Fraser; and local fixers. ‘Top Gear, I believe, takes away 37 people when they go filming,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Jeremy Clarkson needs that because he’s going to punch a lot of them. A lot of them are going to fall along the way.’

The skeleton crew ‘allowed us to improvise, because quite a lot of stuff when you’re in central Asia will not go right. These places are not really set up to follow a programme,’ Baddiel continued.

‘I did five series of Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned and, before that, a lot of stage stuff where I was improvising and ad-libbing. I think you can do that with people and landscapes, too.’

He added: ‘I wanted to have some authorship, so I said early on that I would not follow an exact script. That way, we would find more interesting stuff and make more interesting television.’

Baddiel was aware of the potential dangers of the trip, which took him through regions where kidnapping of Westerners is a real threat.

Risk assessments for overseas shoots, he noted, are of sufficient length to deter presenters from reading them: ‘I looked at it; it was long. And I assumed that everything would be fine.

‘Gunpowder was made from pigeon shit in 15th-century Turkey.

I thought I was going to talk about that, but I had to harvest [the poo] and that involved climbing into enormous caves on these tiny ladders and nearly being asphyxiated by pigeon shit. That was probably in the risk assessment somewhere.’

David Baddiel was in conversation with Danny Baker at The Hospital Club, central London on 29 February. The event was produced by Richard Lambert from Discovery and Jamie O’Neill from the RTS.

17

Cord cutting: could it happen here?

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ater this month, NBC­ Universal will launch Hayu, a new subscription online video service devoted to reality television shows, such as The Real Housewives franchise and Don’t Tell the Bride. It fol­ lows hard on the heels of Seeso, another subscription video on-demand (SVoD) offering from NBCU, but this time devoted to comedy and entertainment shows, ranging from Saturday Night Live to Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

Seeso’s arrival in January came as Disney­Life was launching its Net­flixlike streaming service in the UK, featur­ ing a wide range of Disney films and TV shows, plus music and audio books.

Will this sudden flurry of new, direct-to-consumer, ad-free, subscrip­ tion services backed by major Ameri­ can studios lead to renewed pressure on pay-TV companies? Sky and Virgin have already had to adjust to the arrival of Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Indeed, could this be a trend that will undermine the prospects for UK pay-TV operators? In other words, is US-­style cord-cutting – customers terminating their cable or satellite subscriptions – starting to cross the Atlantic, with viewers opting instead for cheaper SVoD deals?

18

Pay-TV

As more subscription on-demand services launch in the UK, Raymond Snoddy asks if pay-TV’s days are numbered Guy Bisson, Research Director of consultancy Ampere, believes that more such online initiatives will be launched in the months ahead. He suggests that the trend is gathering pace.

Pierre Lescure, for instance, the French media veteran who founded Canal+, is in the course of launching Molotov. This new online service will draw on the Netflix experience, but will also carry live television broadcasts.

In the UK, consumer research has identified a segment of young, affluent viewers who are starting to engage with a wide range of SVoD services.

“We think that they are building their own packages, which generally involve multiple SVoD services – Net­ flix, of course, but also Amazon Prime

and Spotify. They might also throw in a Now TV subscription from Sky,” says Bisson. Parents with young children might also subscribe to Hopster, which provides programmes and learning games for kids aged two to six.

However, the consultant does not believe that the US experience of cord-cutting will be replicated in the UK. So, pay-TV companies can relax – at least for the time being.

But he adds that traditional operators such as Sky will have to “keep moving and keep delivering” the flexibility that many consumers appear to want.

Ampere’s view is that the new direct services backed by US studios will become part of what it calls “the next-­ generation bundle” of channels and services.

“Who will end up providing that? It’s up for the taking,” says Bisson. “Clearly, Sky is in a good position to do that, as is Virgin and, eventually, BT. “We are not saying that they [the pay-TV operators] are going to lose everything. They are in a strong posi­ tion to provide that bundle, but things are clearly moving in that direction.”

It is a reasonable assumption that the new SVoD services will reduce the growth prospects of the existing giants, Netflix, Amazon Prime and iTunes. The

Shutterstock

new entrants aim to cut out the middle­ men and use the latest online technol­ ogy to go straight to consumers on multiple devices.

Services may be evolving faster than the economic models that will support them. But there is a near universal view in the UK media industry that, however much viewing habits change over time, the threat from US-style cord-cutting in the UK has been greatly exaggerated.

There is a consensus that SVoD will remain what it is now – a supplement, rather than a substitute, for existing offers.

As consultancy Deloitte has empha­ sised, three quarters of subscribers to an SVoD service in the UK also sub­ scribe to mainstream pay-TV. More­ over, Virgin and BT – though not, so far, Sky – offer Netfix to their customers.

Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch argues that cord-cutting occurred in the US because its pay-TV market was close to saturation.

He thinks that American consumers are reacting against being forced to pay relatively large sums of money for the inflexible “big bundle”.

By contrast, channel packages have been segmented in the UK for at least 10 years. Sky offers different bundles aimed at different markets and, since

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2016

2012, it has had its own online service, Now TV. At the more expensive end of the market, it has just added Sky Q, which allows subscribers greater flexi­ bility in how they use their TVs and mobile devices.

“In Europe, we still have this great opportunity of growing penetration and embracing new technology to unlock new pockets of demand. The drivers of cord-­cutting are just not here,” Darroch argued at the Web Summit in Dublin in November.

Subscriber num­ bers appear to sup­ port Darroch’s argument. In the six months to the end of December, Sky said it added 337,000 new customers – its highest growth in the UK and Ireland for 10 years. Sky now has more than 12 million customers across the two countries.

Virgin is stable at around 3.7 million subscribers. BT Television has more than 1.3 million customers, a figure that was boosted by its winning bid for the Champions League football rights.

Thinkbox, the commercial television marketing body, reveals some interest­ ing data in its analysis of all video viewing in the UK during 2015.

SVoD accounted for 4% of the view­ ing time of all adults and 8.7% among 16- to 24-year-olds.

Broadcasters had a 76% share of viewing for all individuals, including catch-up, while the percentage dropped to 57.5% for the younger group.

The main change from the previous year was that the rise in SVoD viewing seems to have been at the expense of the DVD market.

Thinkbox Chief Executive Lindsey Clay does not believe that SVoD ser­ vices such as Netflix pose a real threat to TV in the UK. She suggests that Net­flix is like an ad-free TV service. And, anyway, much of its content comes from broadcasters.

“People who are massive fans of TV are the most likely to also get Netflix,” says Clay. “So, if you are looking for a victim of Netflix, look at Blockbuster and the gradual decline in watching DVDs.”

This view is echoed across the industry. Simon Brown, Head of Strat­ egy and Research at UKTV, sees SVoD services as just the icing on the cake.

They are a positive development because they grow the overall market.

Richard Cooper, Director of Video Research at IHS Technology, agrees that SVoD is a supplement. It has both enhanced the market and forced pay-TV operators to examine their services and provide “some of that com­ pelling ‘over the top’ [over the open inter­ net] availability”.

Cooper says that there is absolutely no evidence to support the idea that a fun­ damental shift in the TV market is under way.

“We are seeing some fluctuations, largely based on people’s disposable income. Most of the worry around these SVoD services has been hype. They have been very complementary to existing pay-TV,” says Cooper.

Patrick Barwise, a marketing spe­ cialist at the London Business School, takes a long-term, sardonic view of those predicting a TV apocalypse.

He likes to quote the famous US media guru George Gilder, who wrote in 1990 that TV was the tool of tyrants and its overthrow was at hand.

Gilder also predicted that the internet would usher in a golden age for newspapers.

Four years ago, Barwise wrote an article headlined: “Waiting for ‘Vodot’ – why video-on-demand won’t happen.”

Barwise is unrepentant, although he concedes that the direction of travel is now towards more online viewing.

“This is really about the rate at which viewing online becomes mainstream, as opposed to supplementary, for those people who are online. And 10 million adult citizens in the UK are, for practi­ cal – video – purposes, not online,” says Barwise.

In the meantime, the London Busi­ ness School academic notes that we have this rather remarkable technol­ ogy that doesn’t slow to a crawl if your neighbours are all watching the same thing at the same time. It’s called – wait for it – broadcasting.

IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A VICTIM OF NETFLIX, LOOK AT BLOCKBUSTER AND THE GRADUAL DECLINE IN WATCHING DVDS

19

22 March

Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane

RTS Programme Awards 2016 In partnership with Audio Network The awards recognise the very best in British original programmes first aired between 1 November 2014 and 31Â October 2015

Booking www.rts.org.uk

OUR FRIEND IN THE

NORTH

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2016

Paul Hampartsoumian

T

he narrator of Net­ flix’s hit 2015 series Narcos said: “There’s a reason that magical realism was born in Colombia. It’s a country where dreams and reality are conflated.”

In 2010, Coronation Street saw the 31-year soap veteran Jack Duckworth dancing in his living room with the ghost of Vera, his late wife.

And it was said, in The Guardian, that magical realism had now entered the rich, dramatic palette of Britain’s most successful TV programme.

Whether or not magical realism really took hold in the North of Eng­ land I’m not sure, but, without doubt, there is a close relative up here right now: magical reality.

Northerners have been going out and winning the big reality TV shows with bewitching regularity. In fact, one northern powerhouse of recent reality stars came not only from the same place, but the same niche show.

Articulate and endearing Vicki Pattison (Geordie Shore) won I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! in 2015.

Model and “fitness expert” Char­ lotte Crosby (Geordie Shore) won Celebrity Big Brother 2013; she now has the obligatory fashion range, Nostalgia.

And buff Scotty T (Geordie Shore) won Celebrity Big Brother in 2016.

To mention the North in any august TV management circle, or even RTS conference, over the past few years was to knowingly order a depressing, lukewarm goulash of public policy, accountancy and suburban dinnerparty snobbery.

Was the BBC right to put money into Salford? Was there any sports news in provincial Manchester?

Alex Connock gives a guided tour to magical realism in Manchester and other Northern media hubs

Should an important BBC breakfast presenter be expected to stomach life outside the capital? It was repetitive.

Even The Daily Mail gave up.

Now, there is a much happier phe­ nomenon – the engaging spectacle of new generations of Northern talent appearing for the right reasons: organic, viewer-driven choices made by commissioners without a quota in sight. Those talents are in front of the camera and from all ages and cities of the North. Think of Peter Kay’s Car Share, Happy Valley, Vera, Prey, Take Me Out. The new Northern talents are also behind the camera – from Boy Meets Girl to The Dumping Ground to The Gift of Life.

We saw superb examples of the next generation in the recent RTS

North West Student Television Awards.

These included a crazily dark com­ edy horror sequence about a crimescene cleaner, called The Switch, from Manchester Film School; a brilliant drama on gnomes from Liverpool (there are always gnomes somewhere in student film awards) and a fantas­ tic animation from Lancaster called Frankenstein’s Daughter.

We staged that event at the Lowry Theatre. The energy and warmth in that room, and the participation, were brilliant even for bashed-up cynics like me.

The guy who won runner-up in the Factual category – Olugbenga Afolabi for Finding Nollywood – was so justifi­ ably proud of his certificate that he brought his two-year-old daughter on stage with him to receive it.

And the Yorkshire Student Televi­ sion Awards saw contributions from two vibrant film schools in York, plus Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford and Hull.

This year, the Drama category was won by the genuinely creepy The Unveiling, directed by Ryan Bloom. It has already won Best Horror at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival.

And, finally, these new Northern talents are away from the set entirely, planning how great their next show will be with just a laptop and a con­ versation. To facilitate that, Soho House is reportedly opening a branch in Manchester.

To square the thing off with a nice, philosophical bow, the planned loca­ tion is said to be Quay Street, in the old Granada building. That’s magical reality.

Alex Connock is Managing Director of Shine North, Endemol Shine Group.

21

From left: panellists Rob Walker, Claire Morrison, Jonathan Meenagh, Nicky Huggett, Jonas Crabtree and event chair Georgia LA

Ideas into reality

A

s viewing habits evolve and the number of content platforms continues to proliferate, the art of developing ideas for successful TV shows is changing, too.

At an RTS Futures event, “Introduction to development”, a panel of experts gave advice to industry newbies and offered insights into the development process.

They provided suggestions on the dos and don’ts of pitching and how to secure that all-important access to people and places that audiences want to see (box, opposite).

Some common themes emerged: the need to work collaboratively; think visually; research the requirements and tastes of channels and their commissioning teams; and, crucially, watch loads of TV. The audience was reminded that TV is a business: production companies need to own and sell intellectual property (IP) if they are to grow.

Jonas Crabtree, Executive Producer, Development at Twenty Twenty, said:

22

RTS Futures

Steve Clarke discovers the vital skills required to win a place in a development team “Obviously, you are trying to come up with shows that get commissioned, but remember that TV is a business. You’re trying to create hits, particularly formats, that pay the bills.

“You can have a lot of commissions but not necessarily of things that generate IP. More and more, everyone wants formats, and these days they have to be more subtle.”

In such a globalised activity as TV, production companies need to grab opportunities when they arise, even if some shows are unlikely to win awards nominations.

“Our company tries to make socially responsible documentaries that, hopefully, will move people,” said Nicky

Huggett, Head of Development at Popkorn, part-owned by Channel 4.

“We have a 20-part series for UKTV, Deadliest Pests Down Under, which isn’t going to change anyone’s life but it does pay our wages.

“We’re making a film about survivors of the March 2015 Tunisian shootings.

It’s never going to make any money but, hopefully, with the right director, will build our calibre as a company. There’s always that trade off.”

Both game-show specialist Rob Walker, Managing Director of Seven 8 Media, and Claire Morrison, Head of Development at ITV Studios-owned Potato, stressed that all production companies need cash flow if they are going to thrive.

“I can have the greatest idea in the world but, unless I have sold it, I won’t make any money from it,” said Walker.

When it comes to development, patience and persistence are vital. It famously took years to convince ITV to take a risk on one of the biggest TV hits of all time, Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?

Repeated rejection is all part of what can sometimes be the smoke and

Paul Hampartsoumian

pre-production,” Huggett pointed out.

Whereas, before, it was enough to present an idea on a single page, now it can be several taster tapes and proof that the access has all been agreed.

Huggett works alongside development researcher Simona Sborchia, who told Television: “Nowadays, there is a lot of emphasis on characters. We’re all used to dramas that are very successful, so commissioners are looking for factual shows that have strong characters.

“That means people that audiences immediately engage with. If you don’t have a good character you won’t have a good show. They have to provide something unique.”

Huggett cited the example of Channel 4’s show about mediums, Northern Spirit. She had pitched a similar idea and was unhappy that it was turned down, but admitted that the show greenlit by the broadcaster had a stronger character. “It was the central character, who was hilarious and very camp, who drew you in,” conceded Huggett.

Increasingly, casting is seen as part of the development process. So how do development teams identify and find great characters?

“Newspapers are still very good tools,” explained Sborchia. “A couple of weeks ago, we came across an article in The Times about a transgender dancer who we thought might provide the basis for a show.”

Social media then kicks in. “You look at their Facebook page and their Twitter feed,” she said.

Finally, don’t neglect to spend time working up the title. A standout programme title won’t, by itself, sell a show, but it will help get you a meeting with a commissioner.

“You can spend two hours coming up with a title and it still won’t be right,” said Huggett.

Lately, she’s been working on a title for a Channel 4 format in the vein of “Very British Problems”. “It’s getting a title that is a bit naughty and a bit unPC,” she explained. “But not so unPC that people won’t watch it.”

EVERYBODY WANTS FORMATS, AND THESE DAYS THEY HAVE TO BE MORE SUBTLE

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2016

‘Introduction to TV Development’ was an RTS Futures event held at the Hallam Conference Centre, London, on 23 February. The producer was Jude Winstanley.

The Met

BBC

mirrors world of successful development. Commissioners pay lip service to originality and risk taking but, arguably, they are more influenced by a particular hit show that becomes part of the zeitgeist.

“There’s a quite a lot of following the ball in commissioning,” admitted Crabtree. “Shows such as Gogglebox almost create new genres. These [breakthrough] shows change what everybody is looking for.

“On the one hand, it’s as simple as getting more stuff like that, but it also affects everyone’s brief.”

He explained that TV commissioners regard Gogglebox “as a really warm show, as opposed to shocking or ­dramatic or very serious and difficult subject matter.”

As a result, channels are keen on “warm shows” and, inevitably, programmes capable of cutting through the digital clutter.

“Overall ratings are going down, so there is a real and pressing need to come up with stuff that is genuinely arresting,” Crabtree said.

The growing sophistication of audiences and the huge choices they have present new challenges for people working in development.

“Broadcasters have to work harder to get people’s attention,” stressed Crabtree, who has worked in development for 13 years. He has helped develop such shows as Channel 4’s Benefits Britain 1949 and BBC Three’s Reggie Yates’ Extreme Russia.

Huggett explained that development is changing: “It used to be quite prescriptive. You would pitch an idea linked to a brief. Nowadays, the channels are much more openminded. They say: ‘Bring us your best ideas.’ The brief always identifies the demographic that a particular show is aimed at, but don’t count on getting more guidance.”

Commissioning is also more audienceled these days, she added. Moreover, because competition for eyeballs is so intense, “there’s got to be a lot more packed into a show”.

“In development terms, it makes it harder to get a commission. The commissioners are a little bit scared. We do a lot more development and

How to access all areas Jonathan Meenagh, Head of Development, Shine TV: ‘Getting access used to be a lot easier. You’d just call up and get in somewhere.…

Access is so difficult now. It’s very competitive and you’re not guaranteed to get real access.

‘These days, it’s more of a lottery.

We spent between 18 months and two years trying to get access to a well-known company. We did loads of work and spent thousands of pounds – but finally realised the company had cleverly been leading us on.’

Claire Morrison, Head of Development, Potato: ‘I had never met a police officer or worked on a police show before I developed The Met for BBC One. ‘They met me and the relationship built.… We pitched it to the BBC. Danny Cohen, then Controller of BBC One, liked the idea and started working on it with me ‘A lot of people thought we wouldn’t be able to get the access.

‘My advice is always to do a very detailed brief so that yours stands out from all the others.

‘If you are passionate about an idea and you have no experience in that genre, don’t let that put you off. Anyone can have an idea. People on the street can have ideas that translate into massive primetime shows.… I think it helps that I am pretty and blonde [laughter from audience].’

23

RTS EARLY EVENING EVENT

14 April |

6:30pm for 6:45pm One Great George Street, London SW1P 3AA

Poldark

Anatomy of a hit

Panellists:

Polly Hill,

Controller of Drama Commissioning, BBC

Debbie Horsfield,

Writer

Karen Thrussell,

Executive Producer, Mammoth Screen

Damien Timmer,

Managing Director, Mammoth Screen

Boyd Hilton (Chair) Additional Speakers TBC

www.rts.org.uk

The awards ceremony was hosted by 5 News Tonight presenter Matt Barbet on 17 February at the London Hilton, Park Lane

RTS Television Journalism Awards 2016 Host: Jennifer Saunders

News Technology: The Care Calculator

Host Matt Barbet

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2016

Television Journalist of the Year: Alex Crawfordd

Jackie Faulkner Sky News ‘She is one of the unsung heroes of our business, the people who make things happen behind the scenes and without whom nothing much would happen in front.

She has been in the business for almost 40 years, mostly working for one broadcaster but often for the benefit of all broadcasters, persuading rival news organisations to co-operate, yet still compete, on their coverage of everything from the day-to-day to wars, revolutions, royal wedding and funerals.

Rival broadcasters have been happy for her to negotiate on their behalf with government departments, palace officials and church administrators, knowing that she does it with professionalism, fairness, courtesy and generosity of spirit.’

�

Pictures: Richard Kendal/Sky News

Judge’s Award:

25

Breaking News

Paris Terror Attacks CNN International ‘The winner set themselves apart with the clarity and confidence of their reporting and, in particular, some compelling exclusive interviews.’

Nominees: Paris Attacks, The Associated Press The Paris Attacks, BBC News for BBC News Channel

Camera Operator of the Year

Mstyslav Chernov The Associated Press ‘An exceptional eye for detail and a full range of shots across his portfolio, capturing emotion and conveying the fear, and sometimes panic, that was at the heart of so many news events.’

Nominees: Dai Baker – Channel 4 News, ITN for Channel 4 Olivier Sarbil, CCTV News

Nations and Regions Current Affairs

Life After April – Week In Week Out BBC Wales ‘A stunning, moving and powerful piece of film-making. Never intrusive, this beautifully written and perfectly paced film took us deep inside the trauma of a family who were still mourning the loss of their daughter.

An outstanding piece of journalism.’

Nominees: Education After Exclusion – ITV News Anglia, ITV News Spotlight: The Hunter and his Prey, BBC Northern Ireland

Nations and Regions News

The Becky Watts Murder Trial – A BBC Points West Special Programme BBC One West ‘The nature and details of the crime meant the programme had to get the tone just right. This Points West Special, featuring an exclusive, sensitive interview with the parents of the victim and the murderer, was a polished piece of regional journalism at its best.’

Nominees: BBC South East Today, BBC One Mothballed – ITV News Tyne Tees, ITV

Current Affairs – Home

Dispatches: Kids in Crisis Erica Starling Productions for Channel 4 ‘A hugely powerful film, with remarkable access to contributors, which was both intellectually and emotionally engaging. A gut-wrenching watch.’

Nominees: Dispatches: Politicians for Hire, Vera Productions for Channel 4 Panorama: The Bank of Tax Cheats, BBC Current Affairs for BBC One

Current Affairs – International

Dispatches: Escape from ISIS An ITN Production – Ronachan Films co-production with Evan Williams Productions and Mediadante for Channel 4 ‘This illuminated one of the most important issues of our time by reporting from areas of great danger – and finding the human story behind the headlines. In an area where brutality is sadly the norm, it found some hope; and it was also beautifully filmed.’

Nominees: Our World: The Killing of Farkhunda, BBC TV Current Affairs for BBC News Channel This World – Outbreak: The Truth about Ebola, Quicksilver Media, Mongoose Pictures & BBC for BBC Two

News Coverage – Home

Thomas Cook – ITV News ITN for ITV News ‘Centred on a good old-fashioned exclusive, built on a hunch and confirmed by top-quality research and a classic doorstep.’

Nominees: Immigration Faultlines – Channel 4 News, ITN for Channel 4 NHS Crisis – 5 News, Channel 5

News Coverage – International

Tunisia – Sky News Programming Sky News ‘Excellent first use of eyewitness video, compelling story-telling, strong background analysis and follow-ups.

This was all-angles-covered TV news.’

Nominees: CNN’s Coverage of ISIS, CNN International Terror in Paris – Channel 4 News, ITN for Channel 4

Clockwise from top left: Nations and Regions News: The Becky Watts Murder Trial – A BBC Points West Special Programme’; Current Affairs – International: Dispatches: Escape from ISIS; Nations and Regions Current Affairs: Life After April – Week In Week Out; Breaking News: Paris Terror Attacks, CNN International; News Coverage – Home: Thomas Cook – ITV News; Current Affairs – Home: Dispatches: Kids in Crisis; News Coverage – International: Tunisia – Sky News Programming; Camera Operator of the Year: Mstyslav Chernov; Daily News Programme of the Year: Sky News at Five

26

News Technology

The Care Calculator BBC News ‘A superb piece of public-interest journalism. It combined journalistic expertise and insight with technical innovation to produce a tool of value and interest to every family in the UK.’ Nominees: Two Billion Miles – Channel 4 News, ITN for Channel 4 Election Screens – Sky News Programming, Sky News

Interview of the Year

Jeremy Bowen interviews President Assad BBC News for BBC News Channel ‘An exclusive, news-making interview with the key figure at the heart of one of the biggest stories of the year. The award recognises the hard work that went into setting up the interview, negotiating terms, maintaining editorial independence and the cool-headed expertise that produced a compelling encounter.’

Nominees: Krishnan Guru-Murthy interviews Jeremy Corbyn (Channel 4 News), ITN for Channel 4 Kirsty Wark interviews the women kidnapped by Ariel Castro (Newsnight), BBC Two

Pictures: Richard Kendal/BBC/ITV/Channel 4/Sky News/CNN

Daily News Programme of the Year

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2016

Sky News at Five Sky News ‘The winner not only covered the major stories of the year in a typically compelling and timely way, but carved out a strong and distinct personality within a 24-hour news channel.’

Nominees: BBC News at Ten, BBC One Channel 4 News, ITN for Channel 4

Scoop of the Year

The Closure of Kids Company – Newsnight BBC Two ‘Originally working in collaboration with others, Newsnight dedicated resources and effort over a period of time to deliver original reporting and, ultimately, major revelations – undeterred by the involvement of one of their organisation’s own executives.’

Nominees: Spotlight: Public Figures, BBC Northern Ireland The Unmasking of Jihadi John – BBC News, BBC News Channel �

27

News Channel of the Year

Sky News Sky ‘Completely professional, as ever, covering news as it happened, but now also breaking its own exclusive stories, offering more analysis, stand-out reporting and innovative coverage of special events.’

Nominees: Al Jazeera English BBC News Channel

Regional Presenter of the Year

Stewart White – BBC Look East (Norwich) BBC One ‘A natural storyteller with a commanding presence on screen, his forensic interviewing techniques provide a masterclass for any aspiring TV journalist.’

Nominees: Nina Hossain – ITV News London, ITV Riz Lateef – BBC London News TV, BBC One

Interview of the Year: Jeremy Bowen interviews President Assad

Network Presenter of the Year

Julie Etchingham – ITV News at Ten; ITV Leaders’ Debate, ITV Election 2015; The Tonight Programme; Exposure ITV ‘The winner demonstrated every aspect of the range of skills required from today’s top news presenters – complete command of the studio, whether in the midst of a fast-breaking story or conducting an important interview; ­unflappable live presence on location; the ability to write and report well, too.’

Nominees: Matt Frei – Channel 4 News, ITN for Channel 4 Victoria Derbyshire – The Victoria Derbyshire Programme, BBC Two

Television Journalist of the Year: Alex Crawford

Scoop of the Year: The Closure of Kids Company – Newsnight

Young Talent of the Year

Benjamin Zand – The Victoria Derbyshire programme BBC Two ‘The judges liked everything about the winner, the stories he’d found, the way he filmed them – normally on his own – and the way he told them.

Original, fresh, provocative, versatile and creative.’

Nominees: Dalton Bennett – The Associated Press Mike Smith – Channel 4 News, ITN for Channel 4

28

Specialist Journalist of the Year: Nima Elbagir

Young Talent of the Year: Benjamin Zand

Network Presenter of the Year: Julie Etchingham

The Independent Award: Tracking Down Macedonia’s Migrant Kidnap Gang – Channel 4 News

News Channel of the Year: Sky News

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2016

Pictures: Richard Kendal/BBC/ITV/Channel 4/Sky News

Specialist Journalist of the Year

Nima Elbagir CNN International ‘Her work took her to some of the darkest and most difficult places to report on in the past 12 months. She demonstrated great determination and bravery, as well as deep humanity. She highlighted the plight of young people moving between continents and had the language skills to follow their journey in a way that no one else could achieve.’

Nominees: Gary Gibbon – Channel 4 News, ITN for Channel 4 Carrie Gracie, BBC China Editor, BBC News

Television Journalist of the Year Alex Crawford – Sky News Programming Sky News ‘To win the award of Journalist of the Year always requires something special and never more so than this year. For many months the news was dominated by the astonishing stories of refugees trying to reach Europe.

There was outstanding reporting by many top correspondents but none matched the work of this year’s winner.’

Nominees: Nima Elbagir, CNN International Matt Frei – Channel 4 News, ITN for Channel 4

The Independent Award

Tracking Down Macedonia’s Migrant Kidnap Gang – Channel 4 News Ramita Navai Productions for Channel 4 ‘Reporter Ramita Navai found evidence of corruption by local police and customs officials, who turned a blind eye to kidnapping and extortion. The film had a significant impact in Macedonia and put pressure on the authorities to take action.’

Nominees: Manhunt: Closing in on a British Paedophile – Channel 4 News, Quicksilver Media for Channel 4 Unreported World: The City that Beat ISIS, Quicksilver Media for Channel 4 Regional Presenter of the Year: Stewart White

29

RTS NEWS

Las Vegas comes to London

LG screens offer surround vision at CES his list of show highlights to a large audience at the RTS event, which was held at ITV Studios in central London.

“What I saw this year was a move to consumer-focused solutions,” said Blakeslee.

“Things that people would look at and say: ‘I can use

BBC R&D showcases kit n London Centre members visited BBC Research & Development's Wood Lane base in February for presentations on key technologies that will enhance viewing quality in the coming years.

The visit was introduced

by BBC R&D chief Andy Conroy and organised by senior engineer John Zubrzycki.

High Dynamic Range and allied technologies will improve picture quality, and a standard developed by BBC R&D and NHK Research was recently ratified by the International Telecommunication Union.

The use of object-based media will be an important component in the move to

30

an IP-based broadcasting environment. Forecaster, a BBC-developed, objectbased prototype for weather forecasts, offers an optimum combination of visuals and audio to a variety of devices.

Binaural audio will come into its own when used in conjunction with 3D virtual reality. BBC R&D has been working on The Turning Forest, a VR fairytale with dynamic, binaural sound, which will premiere in April at the Tribeca Film Festival.

BBC.co.uk/rd offers news on these developments, as well as information on BBC R&D’s Connected Studio innovation network.

Nick Radlo

Jack Dempsey/LG

T

his year’s Consumer Electronics Show showcased some 20,000 products, ranging from the intriguing but pointless – a clothesfolding robot – to gadgets that the TV industry could actually use, such as a pocket-size, smart HDTV screen.

The annual Las Vegas extravaganza, held in early January, was reviewed by RTS London a month later with the help of an expert panel. This also included an MA student and London Centre Committee member, Sarel Madziya, who offered a lay person’s perspective.

Nigel Walley, MD of media strategy consultancy Decipher, chaired the discussion.

Ken Blakeslee, Chair of WebMobility Ventures and an expert on mobile TV, offered

that.’” He also saw many examples of good virtual-­ reality content at the Las Vegas showcase: “The biggest companies are doing things with VR. There’s a lot of investment going into this.”

He inspected an array of 360° cameras, and predicted that “2017 will be the year of the 360° selfie”.

Martyn Suker, Director of Production Innovation at ITV Studios, was drawn to an iPhone with clip-on lenses at the show. The phone could not be used to shoot broadcast-quality content, given the TV industry’s exacting technical standards, but Suker envisaged one particular use for it.

“A lot of productions cast members of the general public and they need to show that [content] to the execs and commissioners. This sort of device would come into its own there,” said Suker.

Anthony Karydis, founder and CEO of 360° video and VR specialist Mativision, whose clients include MTV, saw technology at the show that gave an “opportunity for everybody to produce content”. He added: “You don’t

need to be a professional photographer to use [360° cameras] – the pictures will be pretty good.”

But, asked Suker, “Do people want [360° filming] in the context of a television programme?” He warned against “trying to shoehorn [the technology] into those areas where it’s going to interfere with the viewers’ experience”, such as drama. News and sport, he thought, would suit the technology better.

“If we restrict all the new technologies to the obvious or easy genres, we may miss what is happening [elsewhere],” countered Karydis.

“It’s very easy to see a 360° camera in the middle of a field and players running around, but can we think of a [drama] that takes advantage of this 360° capability?

“We will need clever scripting and new ideas for content, and then everything will start to fall into place.”

Walley argued that Silicon Valley tech companies didn’t understand that what set TV apart from other media was that it offered a shared viewing experience.

“I sometimes say that this technology is developed by people who don’t actually have family and friends,” he said. “It feels like the ‘me experience of tech’ and not the ‘we experience of TV’.

That is often the barrier [this new technology] has trouble getting over.”

At the end of the panel discussion, Steve Dann, MD of London digital outfit Amplified Robot, offered the audience an opportunity to try its 3D 360° storytelling technology.

Matthew Bell

Vera triumphs in North East

L

ong-running ITV cop series Vera, starring Brenda Blethyn, was named the best bigbudget drama at the North East and the Border Awards at the end of February.

Vera producer Will Nicholson, whose credits include ITV series Wire in the Blood

and fantasy drama Beowulf, also took home the special Centre Award. He was commended for using local crews and suppliers, as well as mentoring young talent.

Popular CBBC show The Dumping Ground, which follows the lives of young people in care, won the Drama

Steve Brock

Vera: Will Nicholson, Brenda Blethyn and her co-star Kenny Doughty

Award in the lower budget category (below £600,000).

More than 400 guests and celebrities attended the ceremony at the Newcastle Gates­head Hilton, which was hosted by BBC Breakfast’s Steph McGovern.

Alex Duguid, who has been signing shows for deaf viewers on commercial TV for almost two decades, received the Outstanding Contribution Award. Duguid translates everything from Coro­nation Street to live sporting events into British Sign Language and is based at ITV SignPost on Tyneside.

Chris Jackson, from BBC One’s Inside Out, was named Presenter of the Year, while ITV Border reporter Katie Hunter won the Outstanding Journalism prize for a body of work that included coverage of the Cumbrian floods.

BBC Look North secured News Programme of the Year, and independent producer True North took home the Broadcast Factual award for its Channel 5 series Gift of Life, which is set in the transplant unit of Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital.

The Rising Star award went to newcomer Elliott

Kerrigan, writer of the BBC Two sitcom Boy Meets Girl.

The winners of the Centre’s Student Television Awards were also announced at the ceremony. Film-makers from Teesside University won both the Factual award – with Eat, Then Wait for the Night (Jing Zhao) – and the Animation prize (Domareen Fox for Dresslocked).

The Comedy and Entertainment award went to University of Sunderland students Natacha Richardson and Ellie King for The Family Food Fight.

Stephanie Kiewel and Finn H Drude, from the University of Cumbria, took home the Drama prize for Funkenflug: Chronicles of a Catastrophe.

“This part of the UK has a thriving creative-industries sector. Our hope is that by showcasing the range and quality of work, we can attract more production and create more jobs,” said Graeme Thompson, Chair of the RTS Centre.

The awards recognise the best TV and digital media production from Cumbria and the Scottish Borders in the north to Teesside and North Yorkshire in the south.

Matthew Bell

University of the Arts, picked up a coveted gong at the BFI Film Festival Awards for her short film, Power to the Mini Beasts. Read more and watch her charming film at: www.rts. org.uk/bursarywin

as an actor – and why you should never give up. See the Cuckoo and Outnumbered star on our YouTube channel and at www.rts.org.uk/easytyger

ONLINE at the RTS n February was a busy month online for the RTS: we saw the hashtag #RTSAwards trending in the number-one spot on Twitter throughout the evening of the RTS Television Journalism Awards.

The digital team was busy uploading short, shareable videos from the evening directly to social media and the website. Backstage interviews with winners, such as Alex Crawford and Jeremy Bowen, proved particularly

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2016

popular. And a video of CNN journo – and Specialist Journalist of the Year – Nima Elbagir has had more than 3,000 views on Facebook.

Catch up with the highlights package at www.rts.org.uk/ award/television-journalismawards-2016 n We were chuffed to hear that an RTS Bursary recipient has enjoyed their first taste of production success. Florence Watson, from Norwich

n Continuing our popular Tips in 60 Seconds series, we caught up with actor and presenter Tyger Drew-Honey at his home in south-west London. Tyger gives us his tips on how to break through

n Finally, we’ll be making ourselves busy at the upcoming 2016 RTS Programme Awards, with a live blog of proceedings, as well as videos, stills and all the gossip from the red carpet and backstage. www. rts.org.uk/programmeawards

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RTS NEWS

Wales and Aberystwyth ­University event, which was held at the college, that many people were working in the field at the time and that asking “who invented television” is therefore largely meaningless.

The system developed by Baird was electro-mechanical, while competing systems developed by EMI and others were purely electronic, added McLean.

He explained how Baird’s equipment worked and showed images restored from recordings made at the time, including shots of the ventriloquist’s dummy, “Stookie Bill”, named after Glasgow slang for plaster of Paris.

Baird understood TV’s potential – he was the first to televise the Derby and went on to develop colour tele­ vision, said McLean.

Hywel Wiliam and Tim Hartley

32

U

niversity of Westminster students took home two of the main awards from RTS London’s Student Television Awards in February.

James Walshe, Nathan Visick, Benjamin Norton and Catherine Hughes won the Comedy and Entertainment award for Roasted, the story of a feud over who serves the best coffee. The jury said the script was “excellent” and the film of broadcast quality.

Westminster students also bagged the Drama award with Grandma’s Big Schlep, from Rhianna Rizvi, Sophie Clarke, Zoe Kendall Shafir, Christopher Starkey and Lewis Cyrus-Thompson. It is a quirky story of a Jewish granny whose death throws up questions about her faith.

BBC news and sports reporter Ore Oduba hosted the ceremony at ITV Studios.

The Animation award went to Tommy and Markus Vad Flaaten, from Kingston University, for Bluebarry, which

Goldsmiths students won the Factual award was “energetic and lively, well designed and animated, with good use of sound”.

Liron Zisser, Dominique Brundler Vazquez, Ana Beatriz Oliva and Giacomo Tirelli, from Goldsmiths College won the Factual award with My Heart Is in the East, a “substantial piece of work” about Israel and Palestine.

Awards were also made in three craft areas. Liam Joyce, Garreth Cook, Raimy Little, Danny Kasirye, Dale Gillett from Middlesex University won the Camera award for Not Enough Fish.

Sound went to Jack Thornton, Thomas Metcalfe, Karen Stone and Sam Rayner from University of Hertfordshire, for 322, and Editing to Westminster’s Laura Weissmair, Faye Landborn, Dominic Bergmaier, Todor Bradev and Aaron Guthrie for Mr Duncan.

“Huge congratulations to all this year’s winners, nominees and to their tutors, who, in their guise as executive producer, offer invaluable advice and support,” said BBC producer Andrea Gauld, who chaired the awards.

Matthew Bell

UWE film-makers dominate awards n Students from the University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE) swept the board at the RTS West of England Student Television Awards in February.

The Way We Wander, a film about a blossoming friendship made by Benjamin Brook, Rashida Noray, Mike McCormick, Chris Prowse, Georgiana Clark and Bradley Sinclair, took the Drama prize.

Arty Hunt triumphed in Animation with his environmental short, A Messy State of Affairs.

The Factual award went to

Lydia Johnson and Joe Palmer Joe Palmer and Lydia Johnson for Best Before, about a community food-waste café.

In Comedy and Entertain-

ment, the judges commended Sweet, Ambitious, Thoughtful, a mockumentary about first dates by Christopher Cowie, Ryan Farrell, Bradley Sinclair and Ieuan Rees.

BBC Executive Producer Sacha Mirzoeff discussed his life in TV with the students at the ceremony, which was held at the Watershed, Bristol. During a long freelance career before joining the BBC, Mirzoeff produced BBC Two’s RTS award-winning series Protecting Our Children.

“A fantastic year for student talent and the stars of the future. The winning films demonstrated maturity, depth and real creativity,” said RTS Bristol Chair Lynn Barlow.

Matthew Bell

Paull Hampartsoumian

n On 26 January 1926, John Logie Baird gave the first demonstration of television.

Exactly 90 years later, this event was the subject of a lecture by Don McLean, Chair of the RTS History Group.

At the time, the guests were not particularly impressed.

Some even doubted whether this new invention had any practical application, revealed McLean, the author of Restoring Baird’s Image.

The TV historian told the audience at the joint RTS

London rewards students

Jon Craig

RTS Wales celebrates birth of TV

O’Donnell brings magic to Dublin Claire Harrison

n The region’s leading educational institutions shared the top prizes at the RTS North West Student Television Awards in February.

“Colleges and universities in our region [are] helping students to reach excellence in scripting, shooting and editing – that can only be good for the industry long term,” said Alex Connock, RTS North West Chair and head of Shine North.

David Lambie from the University of Central Lancashire took home the Animation award for Frankenstein’s Daughter, which the judges praised for its “old-school graphics, superb sound, effects and excellent music”.

Manchester Film School (The Manchester College) students Olly Philpott-Smith, Lauren Brown, Sam Okell and Faisal Muhammad nabbed the Comedy and Entertainment award for The Switch, which featured “superb narration” and “laugh-out-loud moments”.

Josh Mullins, Mike Priest, Colin Donaldson and Shani Vizma at Liverpool John Moores University, won the Drama prize with Gnomes.

Manchester Film School Students win with The Switch

North West shares out creative prizes The Factual award went to Manchester School of Art (Manchester Metropolitan University) students Danielle Swindells, Joe Wilson and Thomas Payton-Greene for Resort, about life behind Blackpool's Golden Mile.

The ceremony at the Lowry Theatre, Salford, was hosted by presenter and journalist Ranvir Singh.

It was preceded by a student conference, “Engaging with the media”, produced by the North West Centre and Salford University.

ITV Evening News Editor Richard Frediani and two political correspondents, ITV’s Dan Hewitt and BBC North West’s Arif Ansari, reviewed TV’s general election coverage.

Coronation Street Digital Producer Alan Toner talked about working on the ITV soap in the social-media age.

CBeebies producer Jo Allen, writer Ian Carney and series creator Barry Quinn discussed making kids’ TV, and ITV reporter Adam McClean examined the use of drones..

Matthew Bell

A way into the industry

A

n RTS Midlands event “Breaking into broadcasting”, organised with BBC Academy and Creative Skillset, introduced graduates to journalists and drama producers. The day was aimed at recent graduates in media studies or journalism, and also people with a track record in drama or journalism.

In the morning, the 40 participants heard from smartphone expert Marc Settle about how apps could turn their devices into a mobile newsroom or produce drama.

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2016

Deirdre Mulcahy Deirdre Mulcahy shared her expertise in journalism, shooting and editing. Both work for BBC Academy.

In the afternoon, the would-be journalists were trained by QVC presenter and

former BBC Midlands Today reporter Marverine Cole.

The dramatists were joined by: Wizards Vs Aliens writer Phil Ford; Lewis Arnold, director of ITV’s Prey; and Carol Harding from BBC Drama, who has worked on Doctors.

A speed-dating session followed, in which the participants quizzed the experts.

RTS London Chair Kristin Mason then explained how to produce an effective CV. “Breaking into broadcasting” was held at the Mailbox, BBC Birmingham in January.

Dorothy Hobson

n Joe O’Donnell, Producer/ Director of RTÉ’s much-loved puppet show Bosco was the guest at RTS Republic of Ireland’s February event.

When O’Donnell was seven years old he was taken to see the illusionist Edgar Benyon in the magical extravaganza Bamboozalem, which had a profound influence on the young boy. This passion for magic remained with him.

O’Donnell became a Producer/Director in RTÉ Children’s department in 1968.

Interviewed by actor Anthony Devitt in front of

Joe O’Donnell a large audience at RTÉ in Dublin, he said this gave him “the greatest box of tricks any adult could wish for”.

Bosco, which featured a red-haired puppet of the same name, ran for almost 400 episodes on RTÉ in the 1970s and 1980s. O’Donnell later became Head of Young People’s Television at RTÉ.

He made many kids’ shows for RTÉ, including Wanderly Wagon, which he wrote under the pseudonym Jonathan Selby, in a career that also took in theatre, radio, TV drama and short stories.

During the interview, O’Donnell did a number of tricks, courtesy of his magician alter ego, “Jaydini”.

Charles Byrne

33

OFF MESSAGE

B

en Stephenson, Danny Cohen, Kim Shillinglaw and now Peter Salmon… the exodus of senior BBC execs shows no sign of stopping.

The affable Salmon’s departure to Endemol Shine, which he will join as Chief Creative Officer, is a challenge to Tony Hall.

The Director-General needs no reminding that Salmon is a great enthusiast and cheerleader for the BBC as a creative powerhouse.

His dressed-down, easy-going style won’t be easy to replicate. On the other hand, should Salmon eventually throw his hat in the ring to succeed Hall, a spell working outside the Beeb should help enormously.

Remember, another apparent BBC lifer, Mark Thompson, defected to Channel 4 before returning to take the DG’s chair.

■ So who will now run the nascent BBC Studios? Alan Yentob is no longer around to add his unquestionable heft to Hall’s top table. Incidentally, guess who is the world’s most prolific maker of new content after the BBC? Yes, you got it, Endemol Shine, according to Eurodata statistics.

■ Talking of Yentob, if any readers missed the FT’s Henry Mance’s lunch with the Imagine presenter, do try and read it. The tsunami of namedropping is quite something, even by Yentob’s prolific standards.

34

■ The industrious John Mair’s latest project is a collection of online essays entitled What Price Channel 4? Contributors include Jamie Oliver. The erstwhile Naked Chef penned the introduction to the book, to be published on 7 June.

In it, the kitchen maestro praises C4 for allowing him to move on from his “cheeky chappie image”. He thanks the broadcaster for backing shows such as Jamie’s Kitchen, in which disadvantaged youngsters learnt how to cook, and the more recent Jamie’s Sugar Rush documentary.

It is hard to imagine a commercially driven C4 giving Oliver or, come to that, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall such freedom to make food shows that challenge corporate interests.

■ Mip is nearly upon us. The market’s organiser, Reed Midem, invited local producers and media hacks to a London breakfast launch last month, held at our very own Hospital Club in Covent Garden.

Regardless of the Euroscepticism raging among sections of the British media, the organisers of the spring market in Cannes appear unperturbed.

Odd, though, that Reed Midem held the London event in exactly the same week as BBC Worldwide put on its Showcase market, now held in Liverpool. If Mip decides to do a London launch again, it might be best to avoid the same dates as Showcase.

■ No sign of the TV drama boom fizzling out. In fact, audiences who use

catch-up frequently end up being spoiled for choice.

BBC One’s glossy reimagining of John Le Carré’s The Night Manager is thrilling audiences and getting good ratings.

So much so, that it was easy to overlook ITV’s own magnificent recent Sunday-night, single drama Churchill’s Secret.

The performances and the period detail were exquisite. Reviewers could barely contain their enthusiasm, but ITV will be disappointed that on the night fewer than 3 million people watched the show. Something for Kevin Lygo to ponder as he attempts to refresh Britain’s mostwatched commercial channel.

■ Finally, devotees of American showbiz should reserve a place in their reading lists for James Andrew Miller’s latest book, Powerhouse. Published in May, it promises to be a definitive oral history of Hollywood talent agency Creative Artists Agency.

It is based on more than 300 interviews with studio leaders, US network bigwigs, producers, directors, stars, musicians, agents and athletes.

Miller wrote Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN and Live From New York, an uncensored history of long-running US show Saturday Night Live.

BBC spin doctors will hope Miller never turns his attention to the Beeb, especially following Dame Janet Smith’s damning report on the culture that failed to stop Jimmy Savile.

March 2016 www.rts.org.uk Television

RTS PATRONS RTS Principal Patrons

BBC

RTS International Patrons

Discovery Networks Liberty Global NBCUniversal International The Walt Disney Company

Turner Broadcasting System Inc Viacom International Media Networks YouTube

RTS Major Patrons

Accenture Audio Network Channel 5 Deloitte Enders Analysis

EY FremantleMedia FTI Consulting Fujitsu Huawei

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 Wales

ITV West ITV Yorkshire Lumina Search PricewaterhouseCoopers

Quantel Raidió Teilifís Éireann UTV Television Vinten Broadcast

Patron HRH The Prince of Wales

President Sir Peter Bazalgette

CENTRES COUNCIL

History Don McLean

Vice-Presidents David Abraham Dawn Airey Sir David Attenborough OM

Chair of RTS Trustees John Hardie

Who’s who at the RTS

CH CVO CBE FRS

Baroness Floella Benjamin OBE Dame Colette Bowe OBE Lord Bragg of Wigton John Cresswell Adam Crozier Mike Darcey Greg Dyke Lord Hall of Birkenhead Lorraine Heggessey Ashley Highfield Armando Iannucci Ian Jones Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon OBE Rt Hon Baroness Jowell of Brixton DBE PC David Lynn Sir Trevor McDonald OBE Ken MacQuarrie Gavin Patterson Trevor Phillips OBE Stewart Purvis CBE Sir Howard Stringer

Television www.rts.org.uk March 2016

Channel 4

Honorary Secretary David Lowen Honorary Treasurer Mike Green

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

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

EXECUTIVE

Chief Executive Theresa Wise

ITV

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

SPECIALIST GROUP CHAIRS

Archives Steve Bryant

Diversity Marcus Ryder Early Evening Events Dan Brooke Education Graeme Thompson RTS Futures Donna Taberer

Sky

IBC Conference Liaison Terry Marsh RTS Legends TBC RTS Technology Bursaries Simon Pitts

AWARDS COMMITTEE CHAIRS

Awards & Fellowship Policy David Lowen

Craft & Design Awards Cheryl Taylor Television Journalism Awards Stewart Purvis CBE Programme Awards Alex Mahon Student Television Awards Stuart Murphy

35

Joint Public Lecture

11 May Sir Paul Nurse The Chief Executive and Director of the Francis Crick Institute and former President of the Royal Society was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine with Leland Hartwell and Tim Hunt

Chaired by Tim Davie, CEO, BBC Worldwide Time: 6:30pm for 7:00pm Venue: British Museum, London WC1B 3DG Booking:

www.rts.org.uk Reception sponsored

by Fujitsu