Television May 14

May 2014

From Fish Fight to Rainforest Rescue

Why TV can change our world

The last RTS Futures summer party was hot So hot, this happened…

Don’t miss this year’s party In association with Broadcast

3 June 6:30pm onwards @rts_futures

Journal of The Royal Television Society May 2014 l Volume 51/5

From the CEO RTS events continue to surprise and to stimulate.

In one week in London alone there were two great sessions to enjoy.

The first, packed event was ‘Making it in TV design’, from RTS Futures. The evening highlighted the shortage of qualified people working in craft areas such as hair, make-up and set design.

Later the same week the team behind the capital’s new multi-platform service, London Live, explained how their new baby was delivered on time, despite a demanding deadline.

A huge thank you to all the contributors, attendees and the events’ producers.

The sheer power of television to affect consumer behaviour has arguably never been stronger, given TV’s interface with social networks.

Our cover story looks at how well – or otherwise – television brings sustainability issues to the viewer.

This is a massively important area.

We know that broadcasters and content providers can, ultimately, change people’s habits in the high street, virtual or otherwise.

They can also draw attention to environmental tragedies such as the destruction of natural habitats and species. I recommend Louise Gray’s thought-provoking article.

Part of the RTS’s newly expanded remit involves taking a more direct role

Contents 5 6 8

Susanna Dinnage’s TV Diary

Susanna Dinnage cooks and schmoozes with the talent at the Discovery Upfront in New York

TV’s eco challenge

Television is failing to use its power to bring about real change on environmental issues, reports Louise Gray

The world’s most modest movie queen

For 11 years at Channel 4 Tessa Ross has fought British film’s corner – while trying to make the world a better place, hears Andrew Billen

11 12

Memo to the minister

14

Fresh news

Maggie Brown rummages through the in-tray of the new Culture Secretary, Sajid Javid

What the Mouse plans for its Maker

Disney’s purchase of online video network Maker is a bold move for the traditionalist media giant. Tara Conlan dissects its game plan

Will a new generation of youth-orientated, online news providers such as Vice refresh – or supplant – broadcast news services? Raymond Snoddy tunes in

Editor Steve Clarke smclarke_333@hotmail.com

Production, design and advertising Gordon Jamieson gordon.jamieson.01@gmail.com

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2014

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

16

in helping to train tomorrow’s talent and address skills shortages.

So I was delighted to announce earlier this month our new collaboration with the BBC Academy and Creative Skillset.

The initiative is a two-week, paid, careershadowing scheme run for freelancers across craft, editorial, technical or business skills – details on our website.

In the same vein: is there someone you want to nominate – by 16 June – for RTS Young Technologist of the Year?

Theresa Wise

Making the most of the creative dividend Creative Skillset helped put diversity back on the agenda and is benefiting from the new high-end TV tax breaks, reports Steve Clarke

19 22

Sun, sex and suspicious formats

25 26 28

Our Friend in the East

A good format relies on behaviour that is only just the right side of acceptable to its viewers, learns Matthew Bell

NAB: seismic shifts threaten kit makers

TV hardware manufacturers are combining to ride the IT tsunami that is swamping their old business models, discovers Adrian Pennington

Norwich gives local TV a chance to show it can cut the Mustard, suggests Peter Monteith

Career lift-off

Meg Carter talks to previous RTS Young Technologists of the Year to find out how the award changed their lives

Sound advice from the pros

A penny-pinching reluctance to involve sound recordists at an early stage pretty much guarantees postproduction woes later, hears Matthew Bell

Subscription rates UK £110 Overseas (surface £140) Overseas (airmail £165) Enquiries: publication@rts.org.uk

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

Legal notice © Royal Television Society 2014.

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

3

RTS NEWS National events RTS FUTURES Monday 19 May Speed date the entertainment gurus Gurus taking part: Mel Balac, Executive Producer, Thames Television; Tom Beck, Commissioning Editor, Entertainment, Channel 4; Ed Booth, Series Producer, The Voice; Fi Cotter Craig, Executive Producer, Derren Brown: The Experiments and Apocalypse; Poppy Delbridge, Head of Entertainment Development, Wall to Wall TV; Robert Gray, MD, Yalli Productions; Derren Lawford, Commissioning Executive, London Live; Mark Linsey, BBC Controller, Entertainment Commissioning; Tom O’Brien, Head of Development, Electric Ray; Sebastian Scott, CEO, Predictable Media; Peter Usher, Head of Entertainment, RDF Television; Asif Zubairy, Commissioning Editor, Entertainment, ITV. Participants get three minutes with each of three gurus.

Tickets: £10.00 for RTS Futures members. Free to Full RTS members but you must book in advance. 6:45pm for 7:00pm Venue: The Hospital Club, 24 Endell Street, London WC2H 9HQ ■ Events 020 7822 2820 ■ events@rts.org.uk RTS AGM Tuesday 20 May

Annual General Meeting All members very welcome.

6:00pm Venue: The Hospital Club, 24 Endell Street, London WC2H 9HQ RTS EARLY EVENING EVENT Tuesday 27 May

TV reTweeted

Speakers TBA. 6:30pm for 6:45pm start Venue: The Hospital Club, 24 Endell Street, London WC2H 9HQ

4

■ Events 020 7822 2820 ■ events@rts.org.uk RTS FUTURES Tuesday 3 June Summer party In association with Broadcast.

From 6:30pm onwards Venue: TBC JOINT RTS/BROADCAST DIVERSITY EVENT Part of Creative Week Tuesday 3 June

Quota or not to quota?

Speakers include: Charlotte Moore, Controller, BBC One; Krishnan Guru-Murthy, presenter, Channel 4 News; Trevor Phillips OBE 3:30pm for 4:00pm start Venue: The Studio Theatre, Rada Studios, 16 Chenies Street, London WC1E 7EX ■ Events 020 7822 2820 ■ events@rts.org.uk RTS LONDON CONFERENCE Tuesday 9 September

Power, politics and the media Principal sponsor: STV Group Venue: Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9AG

Local events BRISTOL ■ Andy Batten Foster ■ andrewbattenfoster@hotmail. co.uk DEVON & CORNWALL ■ Contact TBC EAST ANGLIA ■ Contact TBC LONDON ■ Daniel Cherowbrier ■ daniel@cherowbrier.co.uk MIDLANDS Wednesday 30 April ■ Jayne Greene 07792 776585 ■ jayne@ijmmedia.co.uk

Your guide to upcoming national and regional events

NORTH EAST & THE BORDER Tuesday 20 May

SCOTLAND Wednesday 11 June

Young People’s Media Festival

RTS Scotland Awards.

Junior Media Festival For entrants five-13 years old Venue: University of Sunderland Wednesday 21 May

Venue: Oran Mor, Byres Road, Glasgow G12 8QX ■ James Wilson: 07899 761167 ■ james.wilson@ cityofglasgowcollege.ac.uk

Young People’s Media Festival Senior Media Festival and Senior Professionally Supported Festival. For entrants aged 14-19.

Details from Tony Edwards via tonyalto9@googlemail.com Venue: University of Sunderland ■ Jill Graham ■ jill.graham@blueyonder.co.uk NORTH WEST ■ Rachel Pinkney 07966 230639 ■ rachelpinkney@yahoo.co.uk NORTHERN IRELAND Date TBC

Visit to the Divis transmitter Tour of the facilities and mast

by Arqiva. The date and time will be confirmed shortly. Please register your interest at: RTSNI@rts.org.uk Venue: Divis transmitter Thursday 5 June

The Telly Pub Quiz of the Year

Presiding over the evening’s heats and asking the questions will be one of the best known faces on TV and all-round fountain of knowledge, Pamela Ballantine, and Vincent Rainey, Founder of QuizFortune.

Register your team of up to five players via RTSNI@rts.org. uk. Cost per team player is £10 each (cash entry on the night).

There will be prizes for best original team name, the winners and the runners-up. Catering will be available on the night.

Venue: Upstairs at Morrison’s Bar, 21 Bedford Street, Belfast BT2 7EJ ■ John Mitchell ■ mitch.mvbroadcast@ btinternet.com REPUBLIC OF IRELAND ■ Charles Byrne (00353) 87251 3092 ■ byrnecd@iol.ie

SOUTHERN ■ Gordon Cooper ■ gordonjcooper@gmail.com THAMES VALLEY Wednesday 2 July

Enigma

Presentation by Alan Watson on the Enigma machine and its historical importance in cryptography. A summer evening BBQ lecture. Please book via info@rtstvc.org.uk.

6:30pm for 7:00pm Venue: Pincents Manor, Pincents Lane, Calcot, Reading RG31 4UH ■ Penny Westlake ■ info@rtstvc.org.uk WALES Thursday 5 June

Science on television in Wales Panellists include: Prof Julie Williams, Scientific Adviser to the Welsh Government, and Elin Rhys, Producer, Telesgop Venue: TBC June/July – date TBC

Visit to Comux UK Network Operations Centre

Comux is the local-TV multiplex operator Venue: Comux, Birmingham Science Park, Aston B7 4BB ■ Hywel Wiliam 0798 000 7841 ■ hwyel@aim.uk.com YORKSHIRE Friday 27 June

Programme Awards A number of new awards have been introduced – including one to be voted on by guests on the night – for this, the 10th year Venue: Royal Armouries Museum, Armouries Drive, Leeds LS10 1LT ■ Lisa Holdsworth 07790 145280 ■ lisa@allonewordpoductions. co.uk

May 2014 www.rts.org.uk Television

TV diary Susanna Dinnage cooks and schmoozes with the talent at the Discovery Upfront in New York

A

rrive in New York for the Discovery Upfront – always a wow event; I have a week of meetings and sessions with clients, press and talent ahead of me.

I’m staying in Soho House New York and wondering yet again why my house doesn’t look like this.

■ Dinner with three of the Deadliest Catch captains. I order crab cakes – what else? – but can’t help noticing they all order New York strip.

Our Head of Talent asked them all to wear jackets and ties for the occasion; we have done the opposite.

Two bottles of red down and their stories of life on the Bering Sea start flowing; we have our hearts in our mouths. For us, it’s TV; for them, it’s life and death.

■ Off to Hoboken to make cakes with TLC’s Cake Boss himself, Buddy Valastro. My cake is not good. Some of my Easter decorations slide off as I had apparently “over-steamed my fondant”. I comfort myself that it’s best to let the clients shine.

Attend the Discovery International cocktail party. I am excited to meet Honey Boo Boo’s mother, June, and grab a picture with the Fast N’ Loud boys whose show has charged into the top-five shows on Discovery UK.

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2014

Most memorably, I spend some time with Nik Wallenda, who last year tightrope-walked across the Grand Canyon live and unsupported on Discovery.

He tells me that he prefers to be untethered and to have no safety net as he believes they give a false sense of security and affect his concentration.

■ The Upfront itself takes place today (Thursday). We are dazzled with two and a half hours of new shows and talent from all the Discovery Networks.

Oprah is on great form and clearly having a ball as the Oprah Winfrey Network goes from strength to strength. Mike Brewer from UK-made Wheeler Dealers drives a motorbike across the stage while a marching band hails the arrival of Destination America’s new slate. I’m in no doubt their super-sized BBQ competitions will find an audience among British men.

With over $1.5bn invested in content this year, I come away excited and confident about the future for our channels in the UK. ■ As I leave for the airport, the TLC team in London confirm that Lindsay Lohan is flying in to promote her new TLC show on Alan Carr’s Chatty Man next week.

Discovery Channel is 25 this year

and remains the most popular pay-­ factual channel by some margin.

Last year, it was joined in the UK by a sister channel in TLC and she likes to nip at her brother’s heels. TLC has already out-rated Discovery more than 20 times this year, which is a fantastic achievement.

■ Amid all the work and the fun, I have two significant sporting fixtures in my life at the moment. One is at Craven Cottage every other Saturday, largely watching Fulham FC throw away more opportunities to stay up.

It has been a frustrating season and I tend to go off and get tea or a Bovril when I get fed up. This almost always coincides with the only goal of a game. It’s becoming a standing joke and I think they are going to start using me tactically.

The other is training for the Ocean to City race in Cork on 31 May. Discovery has entered two eightman teams (rowing Cornish gigs).

The race will take upwards of three hours to cover 28km across sea, loch and river.

The blisters are coming on nicely but so is the sponsorship for ChildLine, so it is all worthwhile. It is hard work but my Buddy cake is proving a nutritious addition to my training diet.

Susanna Dinnage is EVP and MD, Discovery Networks UK & Ireland.

5

Content

Image redacted

W

hen did you first see elephants – or dolphins or gorillas – in the wild? It was probably on television, right? And did it inspire you to go out and save the world? Maybe for a few days or so…

OK, let’s try again. When did you last see elephant carcasses with the ivory torn out, lying on the African savannah? Or bleached coral? Or the burnt stumps of a rainforest?

Television, too, right? And did it inspire you to go out and save the world? Maybe for a few weeks or so…

This is the essential problem with using TV to communicate such important subjects as species loss or deforestation.

Of course, it is shocking and, of course, the viewer is going to react strongly and even vow to change their lifestyle. But sooner or later the realities of paying the bills and putting food on the table intervene and the environmental crisis is forgotten.

6

TV is failing to use its power to bring about real change on environmental issues, reports Louise Gray

TV’s eco challenge This is the challenge for broadcasters.

How do they not only engage the viewer but also hold their interest and make the impact long-term and worthwhile?

The International Broadcasting Trust recently compiled a report on how effective television is in engaging mainstream audiences with environmental issues.

Mark Galloway, Director of the IBT, admits the fashion for “green programming” has diminished since the financial crisis, as people have become more concerned about the economy.

“There was a period when there was a lot of coverage of environmental issues and it would be at peak times and quite serious,” he says. “But, as happens with TV, there was loss of interest and the audience did not want

to watch worthy documentaries.

“So, from being a lot, there developed a situation of being very little.”

However, environmental issues have still been “smuggled” into television through other formats.

Farming is always featured on the BBC’s Countryfile, which can attract more than 8 million viewers. Galloway sees this “mainstreaming” of the environment into a range of output – rather than being put in its own, separate category – as the way forward.

“The environment should not be treated with kid gloves,” he says. “It is messy and difficult and should feature all over the place. Broadcasters should

be more confident about people being interested.”

Galloway says that most coverage is now through programmes about food, travel or property.

Good examples are Channel 4’s Hugh’s Fish Fight, which highlights overfishing of the oceans, Simon Reeve’s travel programmes on BBC Two, which always include threats to the environment when exploring new places, and Channel 4’s Grand Designs, which often features homes aiming for a low carbon footprint.

Perhaps, in the future, environmental issues could be included in more factual programmes – and even in drama? Imagine an EastEnders recycling storyline.

“If you had a TV programme with environment in the title, people wouldn’t watch it. People will only watch environmental programmes when they connect with audiences,” says Galloway. “But this is not happening as much as

it should.”

There is certainly a level of frustration among NGOs at a perceived failure by broadcasters to make the public aware of environmental issues.

Despite the splendour of the wildlife documentaries made by the BBC’s Natural History Unit, charities are disappointed that the threats to the animals so carefully depicted are rarely reflected in the programmes.

For example, the BBC’s recent Africa series did touch on the problem of poaching. But considering that most of the species featured are in danger of extinction, charities could have hoped for a better reflection of the crisis.

Philip Mansbridge, CEO of Care for the Wild, blames the “fragmentation” of television, with broadcasters now having to compete with so many more channels, as well as the internet.

As a result, there is a temptation to go for the tried and tested shots of hunting lions, rather than a more complex piece about their ongoing conflict with humans.

He argues that environmental issues

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2014

IF YOU HAD A TV SHOW WITH ENVIRONMENT IN THE TITLE, PEOPLE WOULDN’T WATCH IT closer to home, such as the badger cull, have been simplified in order to appeal to a wider audience: “There are significant challenges to wildlife out there, but the soundbite world we live in is not giving [these issues] enough time.”

Julian Newman, Campaigns Director at the Environmental Investigation Agency, is also frustrated.

He points out that television can make a real difference: unlike the internet, a TV documentary can reach millions of people who are not already interested in the subject – including those in power.

Newman cites a BBC investigation into deforestation in Malaysia, which he claims made the Malaysian Government change its policy on logging.

He would like natural history programmes to mount more investigations to uncover environmental problems and bring them to a wider audience.

“Environmental issues can sometimes be put in a box, but they are often tied up with important humanrights and development issues,” says Newman. “We need more investigative and hard-hitting work.”

Leo Hickman, Chief Advisor on Climate Change at WWF, agrees that there should be more serious environmental content in news and natural history programmes, but calls for more “environment by stealth” in mainstream programmes.

Sky, which can boast of having aired 130 hours of “rainforest programming” as part of its Rainforest Rescue partnership with WWF, says the secret is to use presenters not traditionally associated with an environmental message.

In Road To Nowhere, self-confessed “environment sceptic” cricketer Freddie Flintoff cycled through the Amazon to learn about deforestation.

Other presenters on the subject have included Ross Kemp – hardly a hippy.

Lorraine Whitmarsh, a psychology

lecturer at Cardiff University, says that people tend to react to programmes that connect with their own lives.

The way to get green issues across to people is therefore to make them part of the things they do care about, such as saving money or reducing waste.

Recent examples include Kirstie’s Homemade Home or Kevin’s Supersized Salvage on Channel 4.

But can likeable presenters and links to relevant issues really change public opinion?

Two examples suggest they can. The “crying rabbits” online video, put out

by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, forced two dozen high-street chains to stop stocking angora jumpers; and the film, Blackfish, turned public opinion against keeping orcas in captivity.

Television can learn from feature films and the internet about how effective such campaigning content can be. “People are much more alive to consumer power because they recognise that you cannot wait for government to change the world,” claims one former TV executive. “It is shareholders, consumers and viewers who have the power to change things now.”

Will Anderson, Joint Head of Documentaries at Keo Films, has proved this through Hugh’s Chicken Run and Hugh’s Fish Fight.

Both led to consumers complaining about the industrial farming of chicken and fish. As a result, supermarkets vowed to change their practices.

Viewers appear to have connected with presenter Hugh Fearnley-­ Whittingstall, who clearly has a genuine passion for a subject that affects us all – the food on our plate.

They also appear to have engaged with the opportunity to take action immediately via the internet or social media through online petitions.

Anderson says there is a real appetite for interactive TV that not only informs people, but helps them to improve the world they live in by joining campaigns.

“It is beholden on commissioners and the film-makers to come up with interesting ways to tell these stories,” he says. “If you can do that, you can have a great impact, like Fish Fight.

“You have the potential to reach a massive audience, to make people aware, to do something good. You have the potential to change things.”

Louise Gray is a freelance environmental correspondent.

7

For 11 years at Channel 4 Tessa Ross has fought British film’s corner – while trying to make the world a better place, hears Andrew Billen

The world’s most modest movie queen

T

his spring’s Academy Awards, the 86th, will be remembered for two things: the three Oscars won by 12 Years a Slave and Ellen DeGeneres’s group-selfie, which became the most tweeted image ever.

As one of the Best Picture’s executive producers, Tessa Ross had plenty to do with the first and kept well out of the second.

Indeed, now that I have met her, I

8

cannot think of anyone less likely to post a selfie anywhere, ever.

The head of Film4, a tiny, buoyant, dark-haired 53-year-old, is empathetic, open and, even, within reason, fun – but she is no self-publicist.

Her Who’s Who entry is such a poor thing that it does not mention a single film or programme she has commissioned, although these include The Cops, Shameless, Teachers, Sex Traffic, Billy Elliot, The Last King of Scotland, Slumdog Millionaire and This Is England. Her CBE

makes it in, but that was probably a legal requirement.

So when 12 Years won the ultimate prize, she stayed in her seat next to the mother and sister of the director, Steve McQueen. Ceremony over, she did try to reach the stage to congratulate him, but she was obstructed by a crowd of “beautiful, talented, famous people” with the same idea.

She had also remained seated when Film4’s Slumdog was announced Best Picture in 2009. You could say the

The Guardian/Sean Smith

The Billen Profile

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2014

“I probably had wet cheeks,” she recalls. “I’m sure I did not control myself terribly well. I don’t think I cried in front of them, but I can remember thinking, ‘I hope my cheeks aren’t wet.’”

She was not so upset, however, that she did not even then realise that Slumdog, alongside Hunger, Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges and Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, were likely to afford their stars some valuable press time to proselytise for Film4.

“And then Slumdog won the Oscar, and I was invited to speak in the House of Lords at a select committee hearing into the film industry. And a brilliant woman, Baroness McIntosh – who had actually been the Executive Director at the National Theatre – asked the question, ‘Would it make a difference if film was in your [Channel 4’s] remit?’

“To which I was able to say, ‘Yes, you ask a very good question, and that would make a huge difference.’”

And so Film4, which since Channel 4’s first day and Film on 4’s debut, Walter, had always informally been considered part of its DNA, was legislated into perpetuity.

When David Abraham took over as Chief Executive in 2010, he first restored the annual budget to £10m and then increased it to £15m.

In the little world of British independent production, that puts Film4 in the middle of the big three, between BBC Films on £11m and the BFI with its £26m.

After Oxford, Ross began her career as a literary agent, became a script editor for BBC Scotland, had a spell in British Screen Finance, and then returned to the BBC in the doomed Independent Commissioning Group.

She was its Head when she left in 2000 to join Channel 4 as its drama chief. There, quick Bafta successes followed with Shameless, Sex Traffic and Not Only But Always.

Three years in she was “promoted” to head Film4 – though parachuted in to see what could be done with what remained of it would be another way of putting it.

After the flop of the big-budget Charlotte Gray, Mark Thompson, Channel 4’s CEO, had closed Film4 as a separate company, shut its offices in Charlotte Street, and fired most of its staff.

“I always kept on having a kind of kindly oversight on the drama anyway, but the film job just felt like a brilliant new challenge, actually.” �

Tessa Ross Channel 4 (Tessa Ross with Steve McQueen)

woman simply doesn’t know how to celebrate. Perhaps that is what they think at Channel 4.

She had been back from LA only two weeks, when it was announced that she was quitting Horseferry Road to become Chief Executive of the National Theatre.

Surely, I ask her in her meeting room at Channel 4 – what deals must have been sealed with a handshake here! – she is not leaving because it has been 13 years of slavery at Channel 4.

“It’s never, ever felt like slavery. I’ve loved literally every minute of it,” she assures me.

There are, she says, two reasons she leaves in September for the South Bank.

The first is that the National presents a “fantastic opportunity” to learn “a whole new world”, and its new director, Rufus Norris, has made it clear he wants her creative contribution.

“The other reason is that I love this place so much I think sometimes your best and honest gift to it is to let somebody else have a go at it, rather than hold on tightly in fear of, ‘Can I do as well? Can I do as well?’

“Sometimes a new, fresh, vision is the best that you can give, like letting go of children.”

She says she loves the job, but doesn’t she suffer from insomnia? “I do. I wake up at 4:00am.”

Anxiety, I diagnose. “It is anxiety but it’s anxiety because nobody has a right to think they’re doing everything right.

“I don’t want to be an arrogant, pompous person with money to spend.

I want to be a humble, decent person with money to spend.”

She must say no to people a lot? “All the time. But you have to say no nicely.”

Without it destroying them? “I hope so. But, of course, it must do. And that’s another reason why a new head in this job will be a good thing. A lot of people who I’ve said no to, won’t be said no to in the future.”

She leaves on a high, but her years at Channel 4 have not exactly taken a smooth trajectory towards it.

In 2008 she returned from the Toronto Film Festival where Steve McQueen’s first feature film, Hunger, had won the critics’ prize and Slumdog had won the audience prize, to be told that the bosses wanted to see her.

She was expecting a “well done”.

Instead, CEO Andy Duncan and Director of Television Kevin Lygo told her that Channel 4 was in trouble and her budget was being cut from £10m to £7m.

Tessa Ross, CBE, Controller of Film and Drama, Channel 4; Chief Executive-elect, National Theatre Married Mark Scantlebury, brand consultant; three children Born 6 July 1961; her father, Leonard Ross, was a commercial lawyer; her mother, Sharon ‘Shannie’ Ross, a teacher and charity founder Education Westminster School; Somerville College, Oxford, studying Chinese 1986 Literary agent, Anthony Shields 1988 Script Editor, BBC Scotland 1990 Head of Development, British Screen Finance 1993 Joins BBC’s Independent Commissioning Group (ICG) 1997 Head of ICG 2000 Head of Drama, Channel 4 2003 Head of Film4 2005 Head of Film and Drama, C4 2013 Bafta award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Bullseyes Billy Elliot; Slumdog Millionaire; 12 Years a Slave One that missed Never Let Me Go – ‘It makes me quite sad. It was a beautifully pitched adaptation of a wonderful novel.’

What they say David Abraham: ‘Extraordinary commitment, talent and leadership.’

Paul Abbott (in 2000): ‘She wanders around White City with a flower in her cleavage and looks like a beacon of hope.’

Steve McQueen: ‘She is like Alex Ferguson. You have to win.’

Tessa’s TV Southcliffe; Line of Duty; The Bridge II on Netflix, ‘which I wouldn’t say I’m loving’.

9

Channel 4

Slumdog Millionaire � Even though it had been decimated? “Particularly, because I think it needed everything doing. The reason for it being loved by the channel needed to be found again.

“That was a very important part of it. How could it be adored and needed both by the industry and by the channel? It was a huge drain on the channel because there was so much money invested. But losing it was a terrible loss to the industry because they’d had this promise of something and a huge commitment to distribution and sales and production that just disappeared.”

This, however, does not quite convey Ross’s eventual passion for Film4, which, when she gets going, today has a biblical force to it.

“I’ve always thought Film4’s a bit like putting as many talented people as possible on Noah’s Ark and saving them from the flood, so they can keep going and keep their ideas alive.”

Would a film-maker such as Steve McQueen otherwise drown in this flood? “Drowning is an extreme description of what would happen, but I do believe that a lot of work wouldn’t happen.

“You know, Slumdog is a wonderful, if repeated, example of a project that the market couldn’t and didn’t see the value in until it was a finished film, because it was in Hindi with no stars.

“Our job at Film4, and indeed at Channel 4, is to make the things that are different, that are other, that are pushing the boat out in some way, that are experimental, that are ques-

10

tioning, or have something original in voice, in tone and in spirit.”

The market certainly sometimes takes production in unhappy directions.

Ross is concerned at the paucity of women in film direction – although she has no difficulty reeling off four female names currently directing Film4 movies – and outraged at the way women are still portrayed on TV. “Even True Detective – that first episode was brilliant, but you think, ‘Did we really need to have a dead naked woman as our opening?’”

It is, however, when she tells me that “the best work is done without thought for commercial success” that it hits me that, of all the television executives I have interviewed, it is Ross who most enthusiastically articulates the case for public service.

Personal fame seems to have no appeal for her. Nor does personal wealth: she looks at me almost despairingly when I ask if she was never tempted to earn some big bucks in Hollywood. I say she sounds almost… “Old fashioned?”

If she is, I say, I mean it as a compliment. Which I do, although when we have finished talking she sighs and says she knows she has sounded so very serious: “My films and my children, I can’t help it.”

What interests me is where her sense of duty comes from. It takes very little digging to find out.

Her father died of leukaemia, aged 78, last September. The son of a Jewish East Ender who worked at the dogs,

I DON’T WANT TO BE AN ARROGANT, POMPOUS PERSON WITH MONEY TO SPEND. I WANT TO BE A HUMBLE, DECENT PERSON WITH MONEY TO SPEND he was a self-educated man, a commercial lawyer who believed it was his responsibility to “make the world a better place”.

Her mother, a teacher, shared his principles. It was around her kitchen table in Hampstead Garden Suburb that the spinal-injury charity Aspire was formed and would eventually raise millions for a rehabilitation unit in Stanmore.

“Make the world a better place,” their daughter echoes. “Yes, I am sure, it is all down to them.”

Like her parents, Ross has enjoyed a happy marriage. She and Mark Scantlebury have been together for 27 years, after meeting when she was at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

Having left drama production, he now owns a brand consultancy, Quiet­room. They have two boys, 24 and 17, and a daughter, 21.

“If I look back at my life – a wonderful family, wonderful parents, a happy school life, a happy university, a wonderful marriage, three very healthy, happy children – how can it not be right for me to try and do whatever I can do.

“I love my work. I’ve loved every bit of my work. I’ve never had to do anything that was drudgery. I might have argued with people. I might have not achieved things I wished I had, but I have always believed in it.

I’ve been able to go to work each day believing in it.”

She is a lucky woman. But the National Theatre is surely even more lucky to be getting her.

May 2014 www.rts.org.uk Television

Westminster

Memo to the minister

A

s Sajid Javid settles into his first Cabinet post under the watchful eye of his heroine, Margaret Thatcher, the key issue for the broadcasting industry will be whether this smart high-flyer takes as challenging a line with the BBC as she did, or be more emollient.

His voting record, regular local newspaper columns and work at the Treasury confirm an unshakeable commitment to free enterprise and market forces, a dislike of automatic index linking and a love of Britain.

His last big task as Financial Secretary was to assist with radical Budget proposals, handing control of pension pots to individuals.

His message to the sniffy arts lobby is that “widening access is very important to me”.

In a recent interview with The Times he said it was now up to the press to sort out regulation post-Leveson: “I don’t see any further role for government in this”.

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2014

Getty Images

Maggie Brown rummages through the in-tray of the new Culture Secretary, Sajid Javid

He is assured of only a year as Culture Secretary – and, after party conferences, election campaigning will take over.

But the preparations for charter renewal cannot wait; charter renewal is the elephant in the room. MPs have rattled the BBC’s cage, with their free vote backing decriminalising non-payment of the licence fee, which caught the corporation flat-footed.

Ofcom is now charged with surveying public service broadcasting provisions to provide a factual basis for debate, which could pave the way for contestable funding, a more sophisticated approach than de facto top slicing.

Regulation and governance of the BBC is a hot topic. Javid says he bases decisions on the best data available, but he will also be asked to respect what one prominent lobbyist calls “the complex ecology” of the current system.

His in-tray is bulging with proposals, including a forensic examination of how the licence fee is apportioned

to different services and areas, not just channels.

There is scepticism about the BBC’s use of funds and management.

Children’s television lobbyists want a significant boost to spending on British-made programmes by CBeebies and CBBC. Lenny Henry has launched specific proposals for ring-fenced money for black and minority ethnic productions; Javid has made the issue of minorities behind and in front of the camera a key task. Simone Pennant, founder of The TV Collective, which has organised a supporting petition, has threatened a boycott of the licence fee.

This Thatcher’s child (also the child of a shopkeeper) is a natural fan of small businesses. Pact and independent production companies are pushing at what they hope will be an open door in their campaign to reduce the BBC’s inhouse production quota.

Production companies create formats, pay corporation tax and, when they are sold, owners pay capital gains tax. Even so, the new minister might just ask why independents need a statutory 25% quota.

He is, however, keen to protect commercial operators from BBC expansionism.

Javid is well versed about the efficacy of tax credits across the creative industries. Most recently, the relatively new scheme supporting high-end drama and animation has been expanded to cover theatre productions and video games.

More is expected, if evidence of a rise in UK programme-making activity is forthcoming.

Javid’s declared priorities also include sorting out universal broadband access and the expansion of superfast broadband. This follows criticism last year of the DCMS’s funnelling of £1.2bn of regional grants for 44 projects to BT. He also inherits the policy to protect children online from cyber-bullying and pornography, led by David Cameron.

A parent of four children, Javid’s heart is presumably already engaged.

He promises legislation in the autumn, requiring those accessing pornography online to prove that they are 18 – as if they were buying adult magazines at the corner shop.

Javid might only have a year to make his mark as Culture Secretary but there is no shortage of challenges.

11

Maker Studios

T

What the Mouse

he Walt Disney Company surprised many in the media industry when it announced in March that it was paying $500m for online video producer Maker Studios.

Bringing Swedish video gamer PewDiePie and Epic Rap Battles of History under the same roof as Mickey Mouse and Star Wars might seem strange to some observers. Admittedly, Disney gains 55,000 YouTube channels with 380 million subscribers, but the move flies in the face of how, historically, Disney has preferred to grow organically, rather than by acquisition.

Maker is no media minnow. It has around 350 staff, with offices in London, California and New York.

The firm’s investors include Time Warner and Elisabeth Murdoch, and its Executive Chairman is Ynon Kreiz, the former CEO and Chairman of Endemol.

Maker’s online video network grew out of its first channel, The Station, launched in 2009. It expanded by

12

Corporate strategy

Disney’s purchase of online video network Maker is a bold move for the traditionalist media giant. Tara Conlan dissects its game plan helping content makers manage their output and businesses through its spreading YouTube network.

In many ways, Maker has operated like a traditional Hollywood studio – except its stars have more of a creative say and tend to make their shows from their homes, rather than having to turn up on a lot.

Since Kreiz joined in 2012 he has given Maker a corporate sheen and reorganised its channels (including Polaris, Cartoonium and The Mom’s View) into four, more easily recognisa-

ble – and almost traditional – media divisions: men, women, family and entertainment.

Such is the interest in Maker that even after Disney announced its acquisition, US rival Relativity Media made an 11th-hour bid.

It offered $1.1bn, mostly in shares, against Disney’s bid of $500m cash plus around $450m if targets are met.

Relativity was rebuffed.

But why is Disney buying Maker?

Partly, it is down to the revenue generators that are Disney’s theme parks. According to one industry expert, there is “some pressure to spend cash – the parks are making money and deals are back in town”.

Partly, it is Maker’s thriving niche.

Disney Chairman and CEO Bob Iger says: “Short-form online video is growing at an astonishing pace and, with Maker Studios, Disney will now be at the centre of this dynamic industry, with an unmatched combination of advanced technology and programming expertise and capabilities.”

Maker will not discuss revenues but

is believed to be loss making, reportedly losing up to $3m a month.

Undoubtedly, Maker’s youthful audience is attractive: around 80% of its subscribers are thought to be aged between 13 and 34.

While girls have tended to transfer more easily across Disney content as they grow up (from Tinkerbell through to teenage shows such as Violetta), the company has often lost boys from around the age of seven. The company’s acquisition of Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar have been part of a strategy to keep the male Disney fan base.

Maker might fill in the gap between those difficult transitional teenage years and early 20s, when children turn into fully fledged consumers and become more interested in technology and online humour.

Epic Rap Battles of History, which features short, funny videos of famous people or characters trying to out-rap each other – such as Adolf Hitler vs Darth Vader – has more than 9 million subscribers. Rasputin vs Stalin has clocked up a staggering 38 million views.

been left slightly mystified by the deal, Hulbert says: “I think it’s about exporting content in different ways... being everywhere and being better.

“Disney has got the content to push through the channels.”

With the acquisition of Star Wars owner Lucasfilm in 2012 and comic­book publisher Marvel in 2009, it makes sense for Disney to own outlets that can promote the characters and games created around them.

While Maker is not as gaming-based as rival Machinima, PewDiePie has the number-one YouTube channel, with 26 million subscribers and 2.7 million followers on Twitter.

VERY BIG ACQUISITIONS… [CAN] SWIFTLY BECOME YESTERDAY’S MEDIA COMPANY

Pie – aka the blond, 24-year-old comedy video gamer, Felix Kjellberg – is as unlikely to have come out of the Mickey Mouse Club as ex-Mouse Clubber Miley Cyrus is to be asked to reprise her 2013 MTV Video Music Awards routine on the Disney Channel.

Arguably, though, he might stand the test of time better. And make no mistake, online video talent has a tough gig – broadcasting to the fickle YouTube crowd is the digital equivalent of doing a tour of working men’s clubs.

However, News Corp’s 2005 takeover of MySpace casts a long shadow – the platform’s population promptly deserted it in favour of more fashionable social media sites.

Westcott warns: “The big media companies do need to be careful about making very big acquisitions, because they might make an investment in a company that swiftly becomes yesterday’s media company.”

Indeed, Maker has already been hit by the age-old battle between creative founders and the money men.

Having brought in Kreiz, former CEO

plans for its Maker Interestingly, Maker is due to sit not in Disney Interactive, but at the heart of the corporation. The idea is that it will influence the company’s culture and help it understand how to navigate and “think” YouTube.

But digital has had a chequered past at Disney. It has generally been kept inhouse.

Acquisitions such as Club Penguin have missed their profit targets. But at least Disney saved $350m on that one, as it paid only half the $700m purchase price upfront in 2007, with the rest of the payment dependent on performance.

“Maker is a very different venture,” says one Disney insider. “It is not inhouse, it’s a big investment in digital, next-generation channels.”

Former Disney International Television President (and now Ravensbeck Senior Partner) David Hulbert explains: “Disney has traditionally been quite cautious, it has tended to buy profits. I think Disney is placing some bets on this.”

While some industry experts have

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2014

Therefore footage of him testing out the latest Spiderman game for his fans, or “bros” as he calls them, could potentially boost sales.

Tim Westcott, Principal Analyst, Television Media at IHS, agrees: “Disney will be putting its properties on the websites that Maker represents.”

Another dimension to the deal, says Westcott, is the fact that “there are restrictions on television. Online is a… new frontier; the boundaries between advertising, entertainment and promotion are more fluid.”

One digital marketeer who works with YouTube says: “It provides Disney with a way of making or promoting content that is lower quality but more agile.”

One concern is that Maker could become corporatised to the point where the more anarchic, non-­corporate talent moves elsewhere. On the other hand, the most successful ones could be mined by Disney and make lucrative moves into its mainstream television and film enterprises.

Despite his boy-band looks, PewDie-

Danny Zappin and three other founding executives tried to sue Maker last summer. They alleged breach of contract and fraud after the “ousting” of Zappin.

It followed a dilution of the com­ pany’s shares, which Zappin argued board members had engineered to “rapidly create a ‘liquidity event’ so that they could sell Maker”.

The action fell away. But when the Disney deal was announced, Zappin tweeted “@MakerStudios RIP” and tried to get it blocked.

His legal move failed and it looks as though the merger will go ahead in June if it gets the all-clear from regulators.

There does not seem to be an Epic Rap Battle of History pastiche yet online featuring Zappin vs Kreiz – but perhaps it is only a matter of time.

Maker may well get a traditional Disney happy ending just so long as – and they don’t say this in fairy tales – it can clear regulatory hurdles, make money, keep its stars and teach its new parent how to navigate the digital world.

13

Digital news

Will a new generation of youth-orientated, online news providers such as Vice refresh – or supplant – broadcast news services? Raymond Snoddy tunes in

Vice reports from hot spots around the world

T

he Newsnight report in April on the moves to impose a UK ban on khat, the mild narcotic widely used in the Somali community, was an interesting, unexceptional, perfectly respectable piece of journalism.

It was unusual in only one respect. It was filmed for Newsnight by Vice, the rising independent online news organisation, and the reporter was Alex Miller, Editor-in-Chief of Vice UK. This collaboration was a one-off, but

14

it symbolised the emergence of a group of new digital players energetically taking on the established giants of the news world – at least in the online, mobile and social-media spaces. These services are aimed firmly at younger audiences.

Radio 4’s Today programme has also used Vice News on the show.

In addition to Vice – which began 20 years ago as a magazine in Montreal before launching online TV channels – there are more recent entrants, such as BuzzFeed and NowThisNews.

“For a long time there was this notion that news was the preserve of a certain type of person who would be perceived to be serious by their age and their dress code,” explains Miller.

“I think what we have done is to explode that by discussing topics with our tone of voice and a kind of visual language that young people who feel alienated from traditional media outlets can identify with,” he adds.

Miller insists this does not mean getting the likes of John Simpson running around in a T-shirt in a riot.

Vice

Fresh news

What it does mean is tackling long-form topics, such as whether Ukraine will be stable enough to hold elections, or the inside story on Libya’s militias. And it means fast-moving images and less-formal language and tone of voice.

Worldwide, Vice’s channels reach around 129 million unique users per month. These services cover music and food (including Munchies, a new collaboration with FremantleMedia) as well as news.

Co-founder and Chief Executive Shane Smith – not prone to understatement – once said he wanted Vice to be the digital equivalent of CNN. But speaking last month at the Mip programme market in Cannes, he made it clear that he has raised his sights.

“I’m not going to be the next CNN, I’m not going to be the next ESPN, I’m not going to be the next MTV,” he said. “I’m going to be 10 times CNN, I’m going to be 10 times ESPN and 10 times MTV, because the number of video views is now in the billions.”

Rupert Murdoch, for one, has decided something is happening in the youth news market: last August he bought an exploratory 5% stake in Vice for a reported $70m (£43m).

Unlike Vice, NowThisNews – which launched 18 months ago and has already produced more than 10,000 video pieces – clearly doesn’t believe in long-form. It focuses on reports geared to mobile TV and social media.

Kenneth Lerer, co-founder of The Huffington Post and an investor in NowThisNews, spells out the philosophy: “We are not doing long-form – and by long-form I mean anything over two minutes. We are serious about doing six-, 10- and 15-second, serious news segments.”

Earlier this year NowThisNews struck up a partnership with NBC­ Universal to produce very brief videos for distribution on smart phones. These are aimed at younger audiences unlikely to sit and watch a 30-minute television news bulletin.

Another provider, BuzzFeed, has been best known until recently for its entertainment fare – everything from cute animals to lists such as 13 Simple Steps To Get You Through a Rough Day, 50

Real People You Wish You Knew in Real Life and The 33 Most Important Lists Ever Written.

BuzzFeed arrived in the UK a year ago and its launch editor, Luke Lewis, says humour goes down particularly well here – and often goes viral.

Recent offerings include a quiz, “How Sweary Are You?”, with a long list of swearwords to choose from – something BuzzFeed would be unlikely to do in the US. “The approach was to build audiences in the UK with humour and light-hearted, entertaining content, but we are now following the US trajectory, where they have gradually been

report on Ukraine from NowThisNews.

He notes that it is very fast-moving, with lots of big, bold captions designed to engage viewers who are probably not traditional news consumers.

Sky News online has already started using what Bucks calls “info-captions” – captions over the video to explain the context a bit more.

“The Murdoch stake in Vice and the NBC partnership with NowThisNews tells you something about the way in which mainstream news organisations are viewing these experiments,” suggests the Sky executive.

While Bucks acknowledges that BuzzFeed is “tremendously popular”, he does not see stories such as 28 Superheroes You Wouldn’t Trust To Save the World or 14 Celebrity Instagram Photos having much impact on traditional television news agendas.

Claire Enders, founder of Enders Analysis, welcomes the arrival of a new kind of journalism for the internet age that is effective and accessible across many platforms.

“There has long been an issue of presentation and accessibility. If you design news for people who are very, very serious about their news, it is going to be boring for younger people – or, indeed, irrelevant,” says Enders.

A former television executive, she welcomes anything that “keeps kids interested in the realities of the world”.

ITN Chief Executive John Hardie is impressed by the very clear sense Vice and BuzzFeed have of their audiences and of their brand identities. But while “they add to the rich pattern of plurality we enjoy”, he doubts that their visual innovations are having much impact on broadcast television news audiences.

But, over time, could these new players grow to challenge the news establishment and even, perhaps, become the new CNN? Bucks at Sky News believes that trying to replace CNN is “a mighty ambition”. “All the mainstream broadcasters,” he says, “are pretty quick to see developments in the industry and understand whether there is anything to learn from them.

“I can’t imagine that any mainstream broadcaster would ignore what they are doing – they are clearly doing interesting things.”

IF YOU DESIGN NEWS FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE VERY, VERY SERIOUS ABOUT THEIR NEWS, IT IS GOING TO BE BORING FOR YOUNGER PEOPLE – OR, INDEED, IRRELEVANT

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2014

building their more serious side,” says Lewis, who used to be in charge of New Musical Express’s website.

In New York, BuzzFeed has appointed the former head of The Guardian’s Moscow bureau, Miriam Elder, as Foreign Editor, and the London office has recently hired both a news editor and a political editor.

The 22 editorial staff in London will rise to 30 by the end of this year; Lewis claims BuzzFeed is already reaching 15 million users monthly in the UK. But to what extent are the young deserting traditional television news and therefore presenting a potential market for the new, online players?

According to Ofcom research, 30% of 16- to 24-year-olds say their most important news source is a website or an app, compared with 14% of all UK news users.

And while each adult in the UK consumed an average of 114 hours of national or international news on television in 2012, this dropped to only 38 hours among 16- to 34-year-olds.

Simon Bucks, Associate Editor of Sky News, is intrigued by the work of the new operators, particularly Vice and NowThisNews.

“Some of what they are doing is quite different, fresh and radical. All news organisations would do well to see what they can learn from them,” says Bucks.

As he talks, he watches a 37-second

15

Making the most of the creative dividend

D

16

Training

Creative Skillset helped put diversity back on the agenda and is benefiting from the new high-end TV tax breaks, reports Steve Clarke

Hunter Institute

inah Caine, CEO of Creative Skillset, got an unpleasant shock when she first saw the headline findings from her organisation’s biennial survey of employment across the creative industries last summer.

The census, published every two years, showed in no uncertain terms that the workforce was becoming increasingly white.

Fewer people from a black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) background were working in TV. “I have to say I was hugely disappointed, really disappointed,” she recalls. “Our industries are critical in reflecting our society and culture.”

While other UK sectors, such as law and accountancy, were making real progress by increasing the diversity of their workforce, broadcasting and TV production were moving in the opposite direction.

“I just don’t understand why an industry that is full of really bright, open-minded people ends up in a situation where it doesn’t represent our society,” she adds.

On that score, Caine is not alone. The figures showed that between 2009 and 2012 almost 2,000 BAME people had left the industries. The number of non-whites working in the creative media industries had fallen from 6.7% in 2009 to 5.4% of the workforce in 2012; in 2006 the figure was 7.4%.

Or, to put it another way – in the three years to 2012, a period that felt the full force of recession, BAME representation dropped by more than 15%, from 12,250 in 2009 to 10,300 in 2012. This was the lowest figure since records began.

It remains to be seen whether there will be any significant improvement in the diversity of the TV industry when Creative Skillset’s next census is published in July 2015.

What is clear is that the findings of the 2013 survey did help shine new light on TV’s diversity deficit.

This is in no small part thanks to celebrity campaigners such as Lenny Henry drawing attention to the issue.

In March the actor repeated his call for the BBC to ring-fence money for shows featuring non-whites; more recently still, the TV Collective raised the idea of a licence-fee boycott by BAME people.

So will Creative Skillset, which Caine has run to widespread acclaim since 1992 (last summer she added a CBE to her previous OBE), support these ideas?

“That’s not an area we would normally comment on. We can train and we can mentor and put all sorts of schemes in place – but if there isn’t a change in structural issues such as employment practice, there will be no improvement.”

“There need to be visible black leaders in our industries,” she emphasises. “People can then look at them and think ‘I can be one of those.’

Everybody always looks to the figures at the top for inspiration.”

So does Caine think a tipping point has finally been reached and steps will be taken to effect real and lasting change? Or was the Creative Skillset census merely another marker of a situation that never seems to improve?

“That’s a very good question. The answer has to lie with the employers.

I can’t answer for them.

“All we can do is our best to work with them to try to make sure the right careers advice and guidance is in place, new routes are opened up into the industry, there is the right kind of peer-group support and that we don’t just regard diversity as an issue that is only about entry.

“At the end of the day, we can do all of those things, but we won’t [succeed] unless there is also cultural change in terms of structures and employment.

“Those are the questions you need to ask the employers.”

She is right that Creative Skillset’s remit extends only so far: the body is officially a Skills Council. Even so, its

role as a lobbyist should not be under­estimated.

And, remarkably, given what’s happened to a number of similar bodies under the Coalition Government, the organisation that Caine leads looks to be in rude health.

This is a reflection of the Treasury’s belief in the importance of the creative industries to Britain’s recovering economy.

Of late, one of the most significant developments at Creative Skillset has been a new source of income derived on the back of tax breaks for high-end TV and film production.

Under the initiative, introduced in April 2013, the body receives a produc-

with the Treasury in terms of getting the industry to focus on the link between sustainability and skills,” she points out.

“We said, if we were going to make most use of the tax breaks, there needed to be extra stimulation and incentivisation because training has a lag period.”

Not everything to do with Creative Skillset is a cause for celebration.

Caine highlights the cuts made by the BBC to its training budgets (in excess of 30%) as part of the economies stemming from the licence-fee freeze.

“Training is something the BBC is fantastically good at. It is something it should be seeking to build on in terms of what it offers licence-fee payers.

That investment helps quality across the whole industry.

“Are the cuts it is applying strategically analysed and evidence based? I don’t think they are.

“Is it looking at where the gaps are, both within the BBC and the industry as a whole?

“And are the cuts that are being applied aligned to that?

I think it’s seen as a cost centre and it’s just a cut.”

Despite this, Caine remains upbeat regarding the future of training per se as it applies to the TV industry.

Among the projects she is steering through is a new digital platform, Hiive, that seeks to connect people with employers and service producers. It is due to be “fully launched” next year.

“It’s a community site bringing everybody together to skills match and jobs match,” she elaborates.

Another new initiative, supported by the RTS, is a two-week, paid careershadowing scheme run by the BBC Academy for freelancers across craft, editorial, technical or business skills.

Creative Skillset expects the TV workforce to grow by around 6,000 people over the next decade – and these people will all need training.

By 2022 the prediction is that up to 33% more people will have jobs in TV, and TV’s share of the wider creative industries economic output is projected to increase by around 23%.

“I remember going to RTS conferences not that long ago when people were very pessimistic about the future,” Caine recalls. “Now we’re living in what’s quite a golden age.

“I think the legacy of that golden age needs to be a legacy of new golden people.”

I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY AN INDUSTRY THAT IS FULL OF REALLY BRIGHT, OPEN-MINDED PEOPLE ENDS UP IN A SITUATION WHERE IT DOESN’T REPRESENT OUR SOCIETY

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2014

tion levy of 0.5% on so-called “core UK spend” of all qualifying shows, that is, those with a budget of at least £1m an hour.

In all, some 32 productions qualified last year, including the Tommy Cooper biopic, Not Like That, Like This, Game of Thrones, The Tunnel, Downton Abbey and Peaky Blinders.

As a result, £800,000 of new money ended up in Creative Skillset’s coffers; for the current financial year this is expected to rise to around £1m.

“Predominantly, it is independent producers who pay the levy, which is a huge shift,” explains Ruth Palmer, TV Partnership Manager at Creative Skillset.

“This money provides an industry training pot to train people working across high-end TV and the supply chain who need up-skilling.”

There is another new production levy, for animation (also set at 0.5% of “core UK spend”). This added in the region of £30,000-£40,000 to Creative Skillset’s finances.

Alongside these initiatives, Caine has been able to attract an additional £16m over two years of what she describes as “co-investment” from the Treasury, to be matched pound for pound by the industry.

“We were able to work constructively

17

Career Shadowing Scheme Apply now!

Are you a TV freelancer with five or more years’ industry experience who has a burning desire to try a different role, move genres or find out how another area of the business works? Then the new Career Shadowing Scheme could be for you.

It’s your chance to try your hand at another job at either a broadcaster, indie or similar media company, and is open to freelancers working across all areas in television including, craft, editorial, technical and business.

Moving to a different part of the industry can be tough if you lack the relevant experience, confidence or contacts. But if you’re committed to the possibility of making a change, you can apply now and spend two weeks getting to know a different job – helping you to make an informed decision on whether to change career.

The aim is to offer an introduction and overview of the role involved, ‘buddying’ you up with a mentor within a particular company to help you get the most out of your time there. You’ll leave with a greater understanding and appreciation of the skills and talent needed to work

in a different area of TV and of what you might have to do to make the move possible in the future.

Successful applicants will be paid £500 per week during their placement.

The Career Shadowing Scheme is being delivered by the BBC Academy in partnership with Creative Skillset and the Royal Television Society.

Roles on offer We aim to offer two-week shadowing placements at broadcasters, indies and other media-related companies all over the UK in the following key areas and roles: Production: Production Management; Production Accountant Editorial: Series Producer; Development role; Commissioning role Technical: Vision/Broadcast Engineer; Studio Manager Craft: Studio Sound role; Hair and Costume role; Visual Effects role Digital: Online Producer; Social Media Manager Business: Senior Management role focusing on leadership and management skills, at a broadcaster or independent producer Drama: First Assistant Director; Script Editor/Script Supervisor

Applications: bit.ly/careershadowing Closing date: Thursday 29 May 2014

N

othing beats a winning international TV format that returns year after year, building audiences and filling the pockets of production companies.

Hit formats, though, are not easy to find. For every Wife Swap, which drew in more than 6 million viewers to Channel 4 in its heyday and kickstarted the trend for voyeuristic (or to their sterner critics, exploitative) format shows a decade ago, there are thousands that never make it out of development meetings.

The latest RTS Futures event, “Sun, Sex and Suspicious Formats”, offered sage advice on how to develop a successful show, drawing on the experience of RDF Television Co-Head of Factual Development Jack Bootle and BBC Academy creative coach Linda Green.

RTS Futures members were then split into nine teams and asked to develop a popular new format for BBC Three.

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2014

Paul Hampartsoumian

Sun, sex and suspicious formats

RTS Futures

A good format relies on behaviour that is only just the right side of acceptable to its viewers, learns Matthew Bell “Formats for BBC Three need to show the lives of young people in Britain today,” said Green.

“They need to be entertaining and you need to keep the audience watching,” she added. “Think about the big reveal at the end.”

Just an hour or so later, the would-be programme-makers pitched their ideas and then voted for the best format, which won its creators a day’s creative workshop with the BBC Academy (see lower box, page 21).

Earlier in the evening, Bootle

revealed how he and his team developed and pitched BBC Three hit Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents.

The show, which recently completed its fourth series, follows teenagers cavorting and boozing on holiday in the sun – and their parents who are spying on them.

It isn’t everyone’s cup of tea – The Independent described it as “one of BBC Three’s most obnoxious offerings” – but broadsheet critics aren’t the show’s target audience and it rates well among BBC Three’s young adult viewers, attracting audiences of more than 1 million.

With The Secret Millionaire, Ladette to Lady and Shipwrecked: Battle of the Islands under his belt, Bootle is an experienced format developer.

“They’re very hard to get right and to pitch because a lot of commissioners are nervous and suspicious of the word format,” he said.

“But if you can crack a format and convince a channel to take a gamble on it, it’s a fantastic prize because, by its nature, a format is a show that can �

19

QUESTION & ANSWER

How to pitch a gap-year fight

Jack Bootle What are your favourite formats that you haven’t worked on?

Jack Bootle: I’m still addicted to Come Dine With Me… In terms of a new format that doesn’t adhere to a lot of what I’ve just said, Gogglebox. That’s a show I really love and an example of Stephen Lambert [his company, Studio Lambert makes the show; he was also responsible for Wife Swap] fucking with the rules in a very successful way.

It’s a different beast; it’s not a classic ‘fact-ent’ format, it doesn’t have journey or drama but it is a format I adore and would love to have worked on.

Q A

What is the best way for an individual to get their idea to a broadcaster?

Jack Bootle: It’s really hard as a lone individual. Unless you have a very good relationship with a commissioner or know them personally, you almost always have to go through a production company… Try to get a job on their development team or convince a production company to represent you and take your idea on.

Q A

How do you go about doing that?

Jack Bootle: If you want to get on a development team, it’s not easy, there are not that many places – but it’s not impossible.

Send your CV along with a couple of ideas to the head of talent or development… If you manage to engage them in conversation or your idea tickles them, that could lead to a job.

20

All pictures: Paul Hampartsoumian

Q A

N

ine teams of RTS Futures members, assisted by development executives from broadcasters and production companies, devised their own potential BBC Three formats during the evening.

Dating formats dominated. In No Strings, Attached, contestants had to decide whether to give into temptation; in Date My Selfie, a date was set up wholly on the basis of a photo; and hidden-camera show House Trap tested the strength of new relationships in a series of covertly filmed situations.

In The Best Wing Man in the World, celebrities helped terrible daters to find success, while Spy Date Hero also focused on people who don’t get beyond a first date.

The Ten to Twoers, the night’s runnerup, forced couples who’d got it together when drunk at the end of a long night to spend a week together.

The night’s sole serious format, My MP and Me, came third and asked MPs to swap lives with their young constituents.

The winning idea, Mind the Gap, was created by a team mentored by

RDF’s Neale Simpson. It proposed bringing together three contestants from different backgrounds for a week to compete for a trip of a lifetime for their gap year between school and university.

The contestants, though, are tagged and must spend the week within one metre of each other – if they move apart, an alarm sounds and days are knocked off their dream gap-year holiday.

RDF’s Jack Bootle praised the “highly impressive” ideas developed by the teams and, in particular, the pitches: ‘This was a really intimidating environment to pitch in.’

Commenting on the winning format he said: “I do like the idea of torturing kids – that gets my thumbs up.”

The development executives helping to develop and pitch formats at the RTS Futures event were: Emma Lorenz (BBC); Emma Smith (BBC North); Tom O’Brien (Electric Ray); Charlotte White and Morwenna James (Keo); Phil Harris and Jack Kennedy (Lime); James Longman (Princess); Neale Simpson (RDF); Simon Shalgosky (Shiver); Joe Evans (Thames); and Joe Varley (Tiger).

� come back and back, and it potentially can sell around the world.”

The genesis of Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents came from Bootle’s viewing habits a decade earlier. As a teenager, he had adored the Sky 1/Channel 4 docu-soap, Ibiza Uncovered, and it was the idea of putting a new twist on this show that Bootle brought to a development meeting in the summer of 2009.

“It followed a group of young people and their sexcapades and sexploits on Ibiza over the course of the summer. It was eye-popping, salacious and very warm,” he recalled.

“I was obsessed with what the parents of the cast would have said when they saw the show go out on air and saw their darling son being fellated on a booze cruise.

“I wanted to find a way of bringing their reaction into the show. As soon as we hit upon the idea of parents going undercover and spying, the show almost formatted itself.”

Bootle argued that formats had to be brave and fall “just on the right side of acceptability”.

While developing the programme, he admitted to being “horrified” by the concept of Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents.

“We thought it might be exploitative, confrontational and feel bad. In the end, it is a redemptive, heart-warming show, but [initially] we were nervous,” he said.

Since the success of Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents, which first aired in 2011, TV has become awash with holiday sex and booze formats, such as ITV2’s The Magaluf Weekender, Bravo’s Sun, Sea and A&E, Channel 4’s Party Paramedics and What Happens in Kavos.

Timing is always important in TV. Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents was initially rejected by every broadcaster Bootle pitched it to, including BBC Three.

“Three months down the line,” he said, “a one-off Mediterranean shockdoc on BBC Three aired and rated really well.” Seeking to repeat this success, BBC Three commissioned Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents the next day.

“If your idea is rejected but you still believe in it, don’t be too disheartened,” Bootle concluded. “It doesn’t mean it’s bad or that you’re stupid; it might be the wrong time or the wrong com­ missioner.”

The RTS Futures event, ‘Sun, Sex and Suspicious Formats’, was held on 26 March at the Hallam Conference Centre in central London. The producers were ­Ross ­McCarthy and Neale Simpson.

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2014

Jack Bootle’s top 10 format tips

1

Raid the store cupboard If you’re struggling to think of something fresh… think of programmes that you used to love and haven’t seen [the likes of] for a while… [they’re] probably ripe for reinvention.

2

Value teamwork I didn’t come up with Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents single-handedly; it was very much a format that emerged through conversation … I’ve not worked on a single format that hasn’t been improved or refined by group discussion.

3

Find your twist You need a twist… to make the show bigger, more exciting, more provocative, more accessible.

4

Keep it simple [The format] should emerge naturally from a very simple, one-line proposition; in this case, what would happen if parents spied on their teenager’s holiday?

5

Strive for the universal Think about universal themes and deep human desires. One of the reasons Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents works is that it’s not really just a show about kids getting pissed in the sun; at its

heart, it’s really about the parent-child relationship.

6

Think about the journey Your characters can’t be static; they need to move, grow and change over the course of the episode. Think about the emotional journeys you’re sending your characters on.

7

Have a good ending Every great format has a great ending… Give your viewers a reason to keep on watching until the end of the show.

8

Be open-minded All of my favourite formats have something quite ‘icky’ at the heart of them. Wife Swap, The Secret Millionaire, even Don’t Tell the Bride – there’s something quite nasty about their premises. But it’s from those [premises] that a lot of the fun, excitement and energy comes.

Don’t be too squeamish.

9

Ignore the rules If you’ve got an idea that you love that doesn’t fit with any [of the above], then pitch it.

10

Get used to rejection The one rule that you can’t ignore is my final rule, which is get used to rejection… 99% of everything you [develop] is going to get rejected.

Linda Green’s four-step format plan

1

Whose story is it and what do they want or need? Why should we care? What do we need to know about them? Is it about information?

Transformation? Revenge?

Redemption?

2

What happens to kick-start the narrative? Is it ‘Who will win the money?’ Is it about fairness, answering a question, an intervention?

4

What’s the visual climax or payoff? Emotional or physical confrontation, discovery, resolution?

What does the audience get out of it? What’s the revelation? A happy ending?

The right person comes through?

3

What’s standing in their way?

And how do they overcome these obstacles? Who or what will help or hinder them? Other contestants?

Emotional or physical obstacles? What reversals of fortune do they endure?

What are the emotional highs and lows?

Linda Green

21

NAB review

Seismic shifts threaten tech manufacturers

A

s broadcasters and manufacturers made their annual pilgrimage to NAB in Las Vegas last month the winds of change were swirling around television equipment suppliers. The rate of consolidation in the sector has accelerated since the beginning of the year, with a number of high-profile acquisitions.

Recent deals have seen US cable manufacturer Belden swallow the veteran editing and infrastructure brand, Grass Valley, for £131m and Quantel bag fellow British firm Snell to forge a business with annual revenues of a shade over £100m.

Private equity firm Electra Partners paid £14m for Yorkshire-based audio-console vendor Calrec, and Pebble Beach Systems was bought by the wireless communications group, Vislink, for £15m.

Describing the spate of acquisitions as “a substantial restructuring”, the International Association of Broadcast-

22

Technology

Kit makers are combining to ride the IT tsunami that is swamping their old business models, discovers Adrian Pennington ing Manufacturers (IABM) points to alarming results in a recent survey of members – it shows profits have shrunk by 24% over two years.

“Those companies that are supplying traditional hardware product to broadcasters, with no great differentiation or critical mass, are under threat,” warns Peter White, IABM Director General. “While there are some star-performing outliers, everyone is

paddling very fast to stand still. It’s not sustainable for most small and medium enterprises to be losing that amount of money.”

The reasons are not hard to fathom.

Companies are fighting to position themselves with new business models based upon reduced profits from hardware and increased contributions from software and services.

The hardware-centric, industry-­ specific, single-function components that populate the transmission chain in particular are being phased out.

Their place is being taken by software-based platforms that integrate previously discrete components – such as automation, quality control, branding, graphics and video servers – and run on standard IT hardware and infrastructure.

Essentially, software applications running on off-the-shelf PCs and servers are taking the place of niche black boxes.

Heavy R&D costs “can be more viable in larger entities – likewise,

DJI

DJI’s new Phantom 2 Vision+ camera drone

NAB/public domain

It takes more than resolution

go-to-market and other shared costs”, observes Steve Plunkett, CTO of Red Bee Media. His company has itself been subsumed into Ericsson and become part of a group providing all playout for ITV, BBC, Channel 4 and BT Sport.

More and more broadcasters are looking to outsource these functions to facility management companies such as Ericsson, and eventually into the Cloud with the likes of Cisco, Microsoft and Amazon. As broadcasters cut back their own capital spending in favour of paying third-party digital platforms, the pool of customers for many niche vendors is shrinking.

Figures from analysts IHS Technology suggest that media services (such as playout, processing, storage) will grow 15% a year to 2017, and the sector’s revenue will double in the period 2009-14, to £13bn. Meanwhile, the traditional equipment industry – worth £9bn in 2012 – appears to have shrunk marginally.

Broadly speaking, if a company has �

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2014

n The manufacturers’ drive to replace HDTV with a higher-resolution Ultra HD format was evident across the Las Vegas exhibition halls. Producers should have no shortage of tools to work with by the end of the year.

But there were also arguments at NAB about whether quadrupling the number of pixels in a picture – the minimum that Ultra HD involves – would in itself provide a compelling case for adopting the new format.

While ‘four times the resolution of your old HDTV’ sounds straightforward, the picture might not strike consumers as ‘four times better than HDTV’.

The critical element in creating consumer enthusiasm for Ultra HD could turn out to be pictures that also have higher dynamic range (HDR).

Video currently has limited ability to handle any big variation in light intensity within the same frame – adjusting to bright sunlight means either leaving the shadows too dark, or washing out the sunlit area to see what is in the shadows.

Dolby and Technicolor offer competing products that extract all the picture data captured by a camera’s sensor across the dynamic range, some of which is currently omitted from the video signal. In post production this data is recombined to create an HDR picture.

Danish firm Pion claims to be able to enhance live signals from outside broadcasts or studios with greater contrast range. The drawback is that higher frame rates (to at least 60 frames per second from the current 30fps) would be required for broadcasters such as BSkyB to move into Ultra HD sports production.

Cheap shots from drones n Although rules permitting their flight over public areas are strict, aerial drones are opening up shots that would normally require multiple cameras and jibs.

The £7,500 Phantom 2 Vision+ is the latest quadcopter from DJI, which carries an HDTV camera with a threeaxis gimbal to iron out shaky footage.

It can be controlled via an iPhone up to 600m away and can remain airborne for 25 minutes.

For heavier payloads, the Sarah 3.0 from Flying-Cam is a two-rotor mini-copter capable of lifting a 7.7kg, high-end Red cine camera. At NAB camera-maker JVC also fitted one of its Ultra HD concept cameras to a flying rig by using a remote recorder to save weight.

GoPro has cornered the market in portable action cams, but faces competition in this fast-growing segment of the market. The £120 Ego from Liquid Image can stream video live to the internet over the 4G LTE wireless network.

Panasonic debuted the first Ultra HD variant. The £380 flash-light-style HX-A500 can be mounted on a helmet and record Ultra HD at 25 frames per second.

23

OUR INDUSTRY HAS HISTORICALLY MADE GOOD MONEY SELLING HARDWARE, SO THE QUESTION IS HOW WE REPLACE THAT can’t be developed inhouse, the best bet is to buy it. Hence Quantel’s purchase of Snell.

John Ive, Business Development Director at IABM, agrees, saying that established kit suppliers have been too focused on protecting their individual interests, “which all too often are tied up in proprietary systems”, and have failed to adapt to more-open computing technologies.

“Former rivals need to put aside their differences and work towards transforming the market by placing a greater emphasis on co-operation and partnership,” he argues.

“We are in the midst of a major technology shift in broadcasting,” declares Plunkett. “Vendors are

Pushing down the cost of Ultra HD The headline act at this year’s NAB was 4K video. With four times the resolution of HDTV, this Ultra HD format represents manufacturers’ big bet for the next decade.

Most exhibition stands claimed some affiliation with the next-generation format, which also dominated the Las Vegas venue in January’s Consumer Electronics Show.

Most of the tangible products sit at either end of the production chain – cameras and TV screens. Unfortunately, much of the kit that would sit in the middle has a ‘coming soon’ label on it.

This is unsurprising, as the overhead of transporting and processing uncompressed 4K video remains high.

Blackmagic Design emphasised the can-do part of the Ultra HD production equation by releasing four new cameras, including two for broadcast.

According to CEO Grant Petty, most existing live 4K cameras are not designed for the job. ‘They don’t have the features we need,’ he claimed, ‘such as a large viewfinder, talkback, tally, optical fibre – plus almost all cameras are made from plastic.’

Blackmagic’s Studio Camera takes

24

having to choose between early product introduction, perhaps with more limited features, to get a lead on the market, or delay and offer potentially more sophisticated offerings but risk arriving late to the party.”

IHS Screen analyst Tom Morrod is more direct: “Only businesses of a similar size to Belden are safe,” he says. “Those operating with a $50m [£30m] turnover will get into trouble and those at $1m-$10m may go out of business.”

For some it’s already too late. The wave of M&A activity can be expected to continue, with a number of the established names at this year’s NAB unlikely to make it to next year’s show.

Blackmagic Design’s URSA PL 4K digital film camera

care of that with a 10-inch LCD monitor, a body cast from magnesium and its connection to the production gallery uses a single cable. For good measure, it bundles in a copy of the DaVinci Resolve colour-grading software, all for just £1,800 – though adding a lens will double the cost.

The surprise package came from AJA, which, like Blackmagic, has engineered a camera based on its expertise in making capture and playback devices for other manufacturers’ hardware.

Its Cion 4K is available for £5,400 this summer, underlining just how far down the price curve Ultra HD is compared with HD at the same stage in its rollout.

Both AJA and Blackmagic are run by their founders, so the decision-making

process at larger corporations can seem like turning round a tanker in a canal by comparison.

NAB, however, demonstrated how the behemoths such as Panasonic are also committing to deliver a stream of new 4K products. The company’s £35,000 4K VariCam will ship this autumn.

Although JVC revealed a quartet of 4K prototypes, it did not confirm whether any would go into production.

Grass Valley, buoyed by Belden’s £131m investment in the company, announced a 4K camera for its LDX range of cameras, which is popular for outside broadcasts. The new unit’s USP is that it will have three sensors, rather than the single one used in most other 4K cameras.

Blackmagic Design

� not attained a significant size or developed a must-have specialism, then it could be in trouble.

The desire for scale and a broad product range are two factors that have been driving the recent wave of acquisitions.

“Our industry has historically made good money selling hardware, so the question is how we replace that,” says Steve Owen, marketing chief for Quantel. The company was famous for high mark-ups on its post-­ production systems in the 1990s, but most of its technology has now been re-engineered as software.

“We could sell in volume, but the market is only so big. What we have to do is achieve solutions for customers more efficiently than anyone else and in ways others haven’t thought of,” says Owen.

Vendors such as Quantel are being forced to expand beyond their original specialisms, typically into IP-based video processing. But doing so costs time and money and, if it

May 2014 www.rts.org.uk Television

OUR FRIEND IN THE

EAST

T

errestrial local TV finally has the chance to show it can perform. Thanks to former Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s evangelical support for the concept, three services have launched in London, Grimsby and Norwich.

Nottingham is on its way at the end of May and Glasgow at the beginning of June, with more to come from the 19 licences awarded by Ofcom.

Mustard TV is Norwich’s version – named after Colman’s Mustard, which originated in the city. And Jeremiah Colman was one of the founding fathers of Archant, the Norwichbased majority shareholder in the new venture.

Archant is a multimedia business; its £127m turnover comes largely from newspapers (it publishes both The Eastern Daily Press and Norwich Evening News) and magazines.

Mustard went on air on 24 March (although it had been trialling material online since the previous January after being awarded its licence in September 2012).

Managing Director Fiona Ryder doesn’t see it as a service that viewers will tune in to for a whole evening.

Rather, she hopes, they will dip in and out.

A 15-strong team produces a 15-minute news bulletin that is shown six times an evening. The daily, 45-minute magazine, The Mustard Show, is themed and is broadcast twice.

The first commissions to local producers include a heritage half-hour culled from the East Anglian Film Archive, and a wildlife series stitched together from contemporary footage and library material supplied by veteran Survival film-maker Mike Linley.

Mustard can reach around 165,000

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2014

Norwich gives local TV a chance to show it can cut the Mustard, suggests Peter Monteith

of the 330,000 homes covered by Norfolk’s Tacolneston transmitter.

Early signs, says Ryder, are encouraging. After just a few weeks on air some advertisers have reported a good response and are rebooking.

Meanwhile, the number of viewers contacting the station to ask for local coverage is on the up.

But there are challenges in getting people to watch at all. A local-TV launch doesn’t generate an on-screen retune message: viewers have to find out for themselves that they need to retune their Freeview boxes to get Mustard on Channel 8.

For the moment, there is no weekend service and broadcasting doesn’t start until 5:30pm on weekdays – and only runs until 22:00pm.

With the exception of former Norwich City footballer Darren Eadie, who co-hosts The Mustard Show, the service is largely bereft of well-known faces.

And, of course, Mustard is up against the BBC and ITV regional services.

Ryder is not fazed by the challenge.

“We are not trying to be a BBC or Anglia,” she says. “Our USP is localness and we aim to be relevant, witty and intelligent and offer an alternative.”

Mustard can call on Archant’s print news-gathering and cross-promotion resources.

In future, Ryder wants more external commissions and is seeking community groups to make material for a number of slots.

She declines to discuss budgets, but MediaGuardian suggests the channel’s entire budget is under seven figures.

Subject to demand, 30 minutes of airtime each week will be made available free of charge to local charities and underserved communities, especially to non-English-speaking communities.

Mustard’s licence allows it to link up with other local-TV stations and swap programmes – but Ryder suspects this is rarely going to be attractive, since the emphasis is on localness.

She does, however, see merit in stations banding together to acquire material and believes there might be scope for sharing formats.

It is early days for Mustard, but it is worth keeping an eye on Archant’s wider media ambitions: the company has just appointed former Pixar and 20th Century Fox Chief Financial Officer Simon Bax as its new Chairman.

Peter Monteith is the former Head of ITC for the Midlands and East, and later Regional TV Manager at Ofcom and Regional Manager for the Midlands and East at Digital UK.

25

Career lift-off

I

n an industry boasting an abundance of on-screen and behind-the-camera awards schemes, engineers and technologists are all too often unsung heroes. Thankfully, this is a state of affairs the RTS Young Technologist of the Year award is working hard to rectify.

At a time when technology is driving root and branch change across the television industry, the need for this particular award has never been greater, believes Terry Marsh. The RTS Fellow and former Director of the Women into Science, Engineering and Construction (WISE) campaign chairs the Young Technologist award jury.

“The aim of this annual award is to highlight the importance of technology within the industry – an aim that’s especially important at a time when broadcast, online and data technologies and their respective cultures are merging,” she explains.

The award, which is made to an early-career engineer working in broadcasting or related industries, offers the winner an opportunity to learn about the latest technologies on an expenses-paid trip to the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) conference and exhibition in Amsterdam.

It was established by the RTS with funds from the family of AM Beresford-Cooke, a distinguished engineer involved in the development of British broadcasting technology via his work on VHF and UHF transmission.

All applications require written endorsement by the entrant’s line manager; nominations are now open for the 2014 award.

“The idea,” says Marsh, “is to showcase the brightest and the best and provide them with a chance to further their skills and understanding – visiting IBC is an opportunity few can afford early in their career.

“And the impact this can have is demonstrated by the number of recent young technologists whose profiles have been raised and careers taken off since winning.”

ITV Controller of Commercial Digital Products Jon Block, winner of the prize in 2009 – when he worked as a

26

RTS Young Technologist

Meg Carter talks to previous RTS Young Technologists of the Year to find out how the award changed their lives developer on ITV.com – is a case in point. Though not as young as some (he was 30 at the time), Block was new to the industry, having worked in management consultancy and dot.com start-ups prior to joining ITV in 2008.

“Winning had a massive effect on my career,” he says. “First and foremost, it was a major confidence boost because of the endorsement of the work I’d done.

“Going to IBC was inspirational – opening my eyes to areas of broadcast I’d not experienced as I was relatively new to TV. “Then there were the people I met. I was invited onto the IBC Conference Committee and co-produced sessions at the event for the next three years.”

For some, such as 2010 Young Technologist Tony Churnside, winning provided an opportunity to home in on a particular area in which to specialise.

“I was a trainee research engineer at the BBC at the time and had only been working in TV for 18 months,” he explains. Churnside was praised by the jury for his work in ambisonics, 3D audio mixes and accessibility for the disabled.

Four years on and still working in the same department, as a BBC R&D Creative Technologist, he has since specialised in how new technology

Application details for the RTS Young Technologist of the Year Award 2014 can be found at www.rts.org.uk/awards. The deadline for applications, which must be submitted electronically, is 5:00pm, Monday 16 June.

will affect TV and radio workflows, and how it can enhance both the audience and production experience without adding cost.

“Today, my focus is on identifying new audience experiences and understanding the potential for new and future forms of content distribution and consumption,” he says.

“It’s about what happens in a non-linear production process where content experiences, though editorially defined and high in production value, don’t all inevitably have a TV element at their core.”

The 2012 winner, Matthew Tushingham, is Senior Support Engineer at dock10 at MediaCity UK, and has also specialised since his award.

Praised by the jury for his work overseeing CBeebies’ move into dock10’s facility, its integration into dock10’s studio and post production, and its transition to file-based production, he now explores new business opportunities for the Salford-based media services provider. These include cloud editing projects and enhancements to archiving.

“Early on in your career, it’s important to cultivate a broader awareness and perspective on all aspects of the industry. Specialising too soon can hold you back,” he observes. “Winning, however, allowed me to develop at a different level and in a way I’d not expected.”

For others, landing the prize helped them take a different – sometimes unexpected – career path.

“Building a network of senior contacts across the industry early in your career gives you confidence to strike a path forward,” says Block. “For me, this meant moving away from a deeply technological role and into [digital] product innovation – defining what to build rather than building it myself.”

The experience sharpened Block’s interpersonal skills, too.

“Looking back, the presentations I was asked to give recounting my experiences, and then my involvement on various committees, helped me towards more of a management role,” he adds. “Today, having segued into [developing digital products for]

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2014

Freesat Richard Kendal

TUSHINGHAM EARLY ON IN YOUR CAREER, IT’S IMPORTANT TO CULTIVATE A BROADER AWARENESS AND PERSPECTIVE ON ALL ASPECTS OF THE INDUSTRY

Richard Kendal

marketing and advertising, my role is roughly one-third strategy and innovation, one-third product development and one-third pre-sales presentations and public speaking.”

The opportunity to network with senior figures from across the industry was also an important part of winning for Peter Sellar, the 2011 title holder.

At the time, he was working as Broadcast Technology Manager at Freesat, which he had joined three years earlier following a brief stint at the BBC World Service.

“Winning was my first opportunity to go to IBC. And gauging the response of those I presented to about it on my return was a really useful way of understanding other people’s views about the latest industry developments,” he explains.

The experience also opened his eyes to different career opportunities: “When you are a technologist, busy in your current role, it can be hard to find the time and opportunity to look around and see what else is out there.”

Today, Sellar is Programme Manager at Digital TV Group (DTG). The organisation represents more than 125 companies to collectively drive innovation and growth in the television and technology sectors, and is a member of the Future of Innovation in Television Technology Taskforce (FITT).

Launched in 2012 by the Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, Ed Vaizey, FITT’s job is to determine how the UK can leverage its TV technology track record to deliver sustainable economic growth. The taskforce will unveil its findings at the DTG Summit on 20 May. Though it is still early days, 2013 Young Technologist Dan Cherowbrier also hopes that winning the award will help him move into management.

“I was working as Operations Team Leader at Arqiva’s Feltham multiplex centre (housing the systems for three commercial multiplexes on Freeview), having joined the company in 2009 as a trainee engineer,” he recalls.

“The week I won coincided with my move to work at the London head office as Business Manager for one of the managing directors – an MBA

SELLAR [REPORTING FROM IBC] WAS A REALLY USEFUL WAY OF UNDERSTANDING OTHER PEOPLE’S VIEWS ABOUT THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

BLOCK WINNING HAD A MASSIVE EFFECT ON MY CAREER. IT WAS A MAJOR CONFIDENCE BOOST BECAUSE OF THE ENDORSEMENT OF THE WORK I HAD DONE

experience without going to college.”

Eager to progress further, Cherowbrier hopes his next step will be a further move into management with a business focus and greater accountability for a specific product or service.

“If you’re an early-career engineer who has achieved something and want to achieve more but need a platform to take that next step up, the RTS Young Technologist award is definitely worth applying for,” he believes. “The key thing is to have done something and be determined to build on it.”

27

Audio

A penny-pinching reluctance to involve sound recordists at an early stage pretty much guarantees post-production woes later, hears Matthew Bell

Sound advice from the pros A Barber on mumblers

‘There was an actor in a drama series who I think just didn’t like a scene, and so he mumbled away.

If you had the script in front of you could work out what he was saying, but the viewer at home doesn’t have that luxury,’ recalled Fraser Barber, who was sound recordist on the series.

‘So I said to the director, “We really need to get him to speak up.”

‘He said, “No, I like it.”

‘I said, “You can’t like it – there’s nothing to hear.”

‘He then went up to the actor and asked him to internalise it more. I’m afraid I went up to the director and said, “So what do you want him to do – swallow the microphone?”

‘When you’re up against that, you do feel like giving up.

‘The industry has lost sight of a lot of good practice when it comes to recording sound on location.

‘Somebody like me, who’s been doing it quite a long time now, is probably ballsy enough to stand up to directors and fight their corner.

But there’s a lot of younger people who don’t have the experience or confidence to do that, and it’s really hard for them.’

28

s the recent barrage of complaints concerning Jamaica Inn demons­ trates, good sound quality is important to viewers. The BBC’s adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s novel was criticised for its inaudible dialogue and audiences tumbled by a third over its three-part run.

Putting their side of the story at a recent RTS London centre event, “Sharpen your sound”, were some of the country’s leading sound experts.

While technological advances are allowing them to sharpen their sound, these gains are threatened by pro­ gramme-makers who do not under­ stand their craft. TV audiences, they argued, deserve better.

“We fight quite a battle on location to get good sound and it’s getting much tougher than it used to be,” said Sound Recordist Fraser Barber.

The neglect, he said, “stems from directors who are seemingly not that interested in sound or have a mis­ guided illusion that [any problem] can be fixed in post production – it can be altered, but it really can’t be fixed.”

At the event, held in early April and chaired by Sound Consultant Andy Finney, Barber argued that mistakes could be avoided and money saved if the sound department were involved in the early stages of a production.

Too often, he said, recordists were called in after sets had been built and costumes made – both of which have a significant effect on sound quality.

To illustrate his point, Barber recalled

his experience working on the BBC department-store period drama, The Paradise, which was shot in Durham.

He visited the set while it was being constructed, and Barber suggested using real cobbles to cover two streets, which would be used extensively during filming, to make the sound as authentic as possible for a series set in the 1870s.

“None of the exterior scenes had to use automated dialogue replacement or be re-recorded in any way. If I had not gone up ahead of time, they would have used gravel [instead of cobbles] and I guarantee that 90% would have been re-recorded,” Barber claimed.

“The dialogue is the most important thing in a film, drama or documen­ tary,” argued Dean Humphreys, Head of Post Production at the National Film & Television School, whose recent credits include the Liam Neeson vehicle, Taken 2.

“It is the backbone of the soundtrack.

Everything else, the music, sound effects, the Foley and the sound design has to work around the dialogue.”

Any muddied or mumbled words could prevent audiences from follow­ ing the plot of a drama, emphasised Humphreys.

He added: “In post production, you are sometimes honing syllables and vowel sounds in order to make a word or line more intelligible.”

The industry, he said, is currently in “a major state of flux” and, increas­ ingly, sound people have to be all-rounders.

“The younger generation, the 18- to

30-year-olds starting out in their careers, have to be able to do both sound editing and mixing.

“If you say, ‘I am just a sound editor’ or ‘I am just a mixer’, you are clearly going to reduce the amount of work you get,” argued Humphreys.

Dolby’s Regional Director for Northern Europe, Andy Dowell, told the audience that, of the 14 years he’s worked for the company, this is the “most exciting time I’ve witnessed in sound”. He discussed leading products on the market, such as Dolby Atmos, which, he said, “is being used in more and more creative ways”.

Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, which won the Editing and Sound Mixing Oscar earlier this year, showed what could be done with this technology, he said.

More than 100 films have now been produced with Dolby Atmos sound.

The technology gives film-makers control over the placement and movement of sound around an audience.

“It’s taken off in cinema and I think it is an interesting proposition for the broadcast space as well,” he added.

While he admitted that some

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2014

directors gave sound a low priority on set, there were others who rated the craft highly.

Danny Boyle, said Dowell, ring-fenced the sound budget on his movies to ensure “there is time and money to do the sound”.

Good sound, though, is not only important in a plush cinema.

“We owe it to consumers to innovate and make tablets and laptops sound as good as we possibly can,” said Dowell.

Good programmes, concluded Barber, should have the best sound.

“There’s a great renaissance in television at the moment and TV drama in particular,” he said. “It would be really great if we could get sound back to where it deserves to be, because the audience deserves to hear every single word loud and clear.”

It’s a message that those responsible for the poor sound quality of Jamaica Inn won’t forget in a hurry.

The RTS London event, “Sharpen your sound”, was held at ITV Studios in central London on 2 April. It was produced by Rosemary Smith.

Humphreys on Pacino Dean Humphreys worked on automated dialogue replacement (ADR) – the process by which the same actor re-voices dialogue imperfectly recorded on set – for Hugh Hudson’s 1985 film, Revolution, which starred Al Pacino.

‘Contrary to most actors’ approach to ADR, which is to be belligerent, apathetic or hostile because they don’t want to do it…

Pacino was beyond brilliant because he would replicate in the ADR studio what he was doing on the screen…

‘There was a wonderful sequence with a long Steadicam shot of Pacino sprinting… [In the studio] he started running on the spot as frantically as he was on the screen.

‘It was the most extraordinary performance I’ve ever seen: he’d only seen the sequence once and yet he got all the nuances and the breaths right.

‘He collapsed on the sofa in front of the mixing console, absolutely spent. He could barely breathe…

Hudson asked me to play it back but I hadn’t recorded it…

‘I thought my career was over and then I heard Pacino’s voice from below the console: “Just give me 20 seconds and I’ll do it again.”’

29

T

wo hundred people attended a one-day summit in the iconic Library of Birmingham to discuss how more TV and films could be produced in and around the city, and to celebrate existing productions. In the evening the RTS Midlands Centre held its annual Baird Lecture, with Mars El Brogy.

The Birmingham Film and TV Summit in early March involved the RTS, Birmingham City Council Film Office, the Writers’ Guild, Screen Writers’ Forum, the Producers’ Forum, Creative England and City 8.

Leading producers Claire Ingham, of Company Pictures, and Tim Key, from Red Planet Pictures, praised the region’s locations and crews.

The day was structured around a series of workshops, including sessions on writing and film finance. An RTS session on commissioning involved BBC drama Executive Producer Will Trotter, Channel 5 Commissioning

Editor for Factual Guy Davies and Mike Prince, Programme Controller for the new local-TV channel, City 8.

This year’s Baird Lecture, “The integration of social and digital into broadcasting”, was given by former member of the RTS Midlands Centre Committee El Brogy, who is now a Digital Producer at London Live.

She argued that, as audiences fragment across devices and functionality, they also use various devices to congregate around formats. El Brogy added that there is no single formula for success and every programme should have a strategy, even if that is to have no digital or online activity.

She urged programmemakers and broadcasters to understand that social and digital activities are not an add on – they are integral to distribution. And she called for a shift in thinking, maintaining that TV is just another screen.

Dorothy Hobson

Film Birmingham

Mars El Brogy (left) with Dorothy Hobson

30

Laura Coyle, Entertainment winner

Harrison Photography

Birmingham aims to lure new shows

New Northern Irish awards set the bar high Students from the University of Ulster won two awards at RTS Northern Ireland Centre’s first Student Television Awards at the end of March.

The Entertainment prize was awarded to Laura Coyle for Breaking Convention, and Mark McGuinness won the Fiction category with Harbouring Hell at a ceremony held in Belfast Metropolitan College.

The award in the Animation category was presented to Michael White from Northern Regional College for A Christmas Surprise. The Factual award went to Thomas ­McKeown and Johnson Orr from Belfast Metropolitan ­College for £13 an hour.

‘The standard of entries

was incredibly high, showcasing the hard work, dedication and talent of the students who all rose to the challenge admirably,’ said Centre Chairman Michael Wilson.

‘This is concrete evidence of the importance of education within the television and media industries, and these students and their tutors should be extremely proud of their achievements.’

Justin Edwards, Belfast Metropolitan College’s Assistant Chief Executive welcomed the students and guests.

Stellify Media boss Kieran Doherty spoke at the event and UTV Live reporter Judith Hill presented the awards..

Matthew Bell

RTS NEWS

How to create a distinctive CV

F

resh out of university and a self-proclaimed “anorak”, Michael Wilson had always dreamed of running a radio station. Radio’s loss was television’s gain, and today he is one of the most powerful people in Ireland’s TV industry – the Managing Director of UTV and currently planning the launch of his next television project, UTV Ireland.

The media boss told the audience at RTS Northern Ireland Futures’ first “Meet the Pro” event at the end of March how he had originally wanted to run a radio station – but moved into TV after realising budgets were tightening on radio news.

Wilson sought work as a TV reporter but it wasn’t to his fancy. “It’s not as much fun as it looks,” he said. “It’s hard work and writing to pictures is a skill that I don’t have. I can tell people how to do it, but I’m not very good at doing it myself.”

While the UTV chief acknowledged that he has had his share of luck and

Danny McGrady

Michael Wilson (right) and Brooke Allen

good timing in the industry, he was keen to push the young audience into making opportunities for themselves and achieving things that would make their CVs stand out from the crowd.

He said that degrees are “vitally important, but then count for nothing after your first job. It’s not something I look for in the team around me. What I look for is ability, willingness and ideas.

“I think it’s more impor-

tant to do things, so that your CV will make you stand out.

Things that say, ‘I’ve got up off my arse and, because I’m interested, I’ve done other things.”’

Wilson added: “Nobody really cares that I have a communications degree, and when I look at your CVs in the future, I won’t really care [what degree you have] either.

“There are keys that unlock the ability to go for jobs. At UTV you can’t get a

job in our newsroom unless you have a recognised journalistic qualification.”

In future, said Wilson, he is keen to involve young people in UTV Ireland, which is due to launch on 1 January 2015.

He was asked by RTS NI Futures Chair Brooke Allen about his previous launch experience – setting up Sky’s service in Ireland.

“The second time I’ll get it right!” quipped Wilson.

Rachel Martin

Jasmin Hedger, Animation winner

Hywel Wiliam

Bridgend conquers Wales

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2014

■ RTS Wales joined the Zoom International Youth Film Festival to present its annual Student Television Awards at Bridgend College at the end of March.

The event was a clean sweep for Newport Film School, the University of South Wales, which won every category.

The winning Factual film, Twogether, was made in Lithuania and featured the remarkable lives of two

brothers with Down’s Syndrome, who had developed their own language.

Describing it as an “accomplished documentary”, the judges were impressed by the access Arnoldas Alubauskas and the production team had been given and the sensitivity they had shown in often intimate situations.

All three nominated entries in the Fiction category came from Newport Film School. The winner, San

Serif on Red, was a simple but well-told story about an aspiring graphic designer during the Second World War, which wove together a personal story with the birth of one of the war’s most iconic poster slogans.

Jasmin Hedger’s Dr Mandala won the Animation category.

The jury said it was original and inventive, with particularly well-­executed stop-frame sequences.

Tim Hartley

31

Lancs students lead Lowry celebrations ■ The University of Central Lancashire dominated the North West Centre’s Student Television Awards, taking away the top award in three of the four categories.

The Animation award was presented to the university’s Kobir Miah for Finding Happiness; the Fiction award went to Sam Cronin for June and the Baba Yaga; and the Factual prize was won

by Daniel Matthews, Beth Norwood and Josh Render for Just One More.

A team from Manchester Film School at Manchester College won the Entertainment award with War Cry. The awards were presented by North West Tonight’s Annabel Tiffin at the Lowry Theatre, Salford at the end of February. Kudos Chief Operating Officer Dan Isaacs was the guest speaker.

The ceremony followed a series of sessions with industry experts, including:

RTS backs career shift scheme for freelancers

T

Annabel Tiffin (left) ITV News Editor Richard Frediani; Newsround presenter Nelufar Hedayat; new Blue Peter host Lindsey Russell; CBBC Creative Director Sam Lewens; and Helen Tonge, Ian Bradshaw and Nick Broughall from Manchester-based independent production company Title Role.

This half-day ‘student engagement’ event, produced in partnership with Salford University, was attended by around 250 local students.

Matthew Bell

he Society has joined the BBC and Creative Skillset to support the BBC Academy’s Career Shadowing Scheme.

This two-week, paid shadowing opportunity is open to 30 freelancers with a minimum of five years’ experience in any area of the television industry.

RTS CEO Theresa Wise said: “The RTS is committed to helping all those working in the media industries to develop their skills base and progress their careers.”

The Academy has identified seven areas of particular demand for placements: ■ Production (including production managers and production accountants) ■ Editorial (including series producers, development and commissioning)

■ Technical (including vision and broadcast engineers, studio managers) ■ Craft (including sound, hair and costume, visual effects) ■ Digital (including online producers and social media managers) ■ Business (including leadership and management skills) ■ Drama (including script editors and script supervisors).

A panel of experts from the RTS, BBC Academy, Creative Skillset, Bectu and Creative Diversity Network will attend a selection-panel day to choose the final 30 candidates and five reserve candidates.

Selection will depend on experience, commitment and desire for change in light of personal circumstances, skills and ambitions.

Applications are now open at: bit.ly/careershadowing

RTS Young Technologist of the Year The Award advances education in the science, practice, technology and art of television and its allied fields. The prize is an all-expenses-paid trip and free Gold Pass to the International Broadcasting Conference and Exhibition held annually in Amsterdam. There is an additional prize this year of free entry to the RTS London Conference 2014: ‘Power, Politics and the Media’

32

Closing date for applications:

Application form and more details at:

Monday 16 June

www.rts.org.uk/awards

RTS NEWS

Graeme Aldous

Big voices fill Live Theatre

Alan Dedicoat (left) and Peter Dickson

T

wo of the most recognisable voices in British television delivered a voiceover masterclass at a packed event on Tyneside in early March. “Voice of the Balls” Alan Dedicoat and The X Factor’s Peter Dickson said they were happy to be better known for their vocals than their looks.

The session at Live Theatre

in Newcastle was organised by the RTS North East and the Border Centre in partnership with the Radio Academy and hosted by the presenter and media executive, John Myers.

Dickson is the voice of many commercials, but is best known for his powerful and distinctive introductions to The X Factor on both sides of the Atlantic. The BBC’s Dedicoat is immediately

recognisable as a Radio 2 newsreader and announcer for Strictly Come Dancing and the National Lottery programmes.

This was an evening full of laughter and learning as the duo showcased their talents across a wide variety of platforms, including narration, television, radio, social media and gaming. The event took the audience through the

basics required to be a top voice artist today, the variety of roles on offer and valuable tips on dealing with producers – especially those who turn up from advertising agencies. They also agreed that in 2014 accents are in, posh is out.

Working within a live environment can be stressful and they both played videos of moments when they more than earned their fee by covering up the hitches and glitches, buying more time for the production team to get back on track.

The finale was a once-ina-lifetime moment in the spotlight for a lucky few, who were invited on stage to read scripts and to be schooled in the art of presentation from two of the best in the business. Dickson finished the evening in true X Factor style, booming out the names of people in the audience.

■ “Don’t try too hard, don’t make false claims and do research who you are contacting.” This was just some of the advice featured at RTS Southern Centre’s “Meet the Professionals” careers event at Bournemouth University in late March.

Thirteen TV professionals met informally with 200 media students from Bournemouth University, Southampton Solent University, Highbury College and the Arts University Bournemouth.

Guests included the Commissioning Editor of ITV Daytime and Factual, Katy Thorogood, as well as executives from Lion TV, Talent South, Bedlam Productions, Topical TV, BBC South East

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2014

Bedlam Productions’ Olwyn Silvester (left) talking to students and ITV Meridian, and assistant producers from Solent Vision and Media Zoo. Advice about how to get noticed was familiar, but is worth repeating: don’t play the trainee, but be part of the team; get involved; watch

people’s output; work with enthusiasm and passion; do the job well; and be prepared to multitask. All this advice came with a footnote to employers to play fair and not exploit new and potentially vulnerable talent.

Gordon Cooper

Sage advice to Southern students There was discussion about broader issues as well, including the imminent move of BBC Three online – “unfair”, according to most of the audience.

And can women sustain media careers when they have young children? “Yes”, according to two media execs in their 30s. And what about the politics of freelancing? “You’ll all be against each other,” said one AP. Overall, the mood was positive. “It’s never been easier to show off your skills,” said David Upshal of Lion TV. “But process alone is not enough – it’s who you are and how you’re going to use those skills that counts.”

Gordon Cooper

33

S

o a UK terrestrial channel is about to be owned outright for the first time by a US media company.

Congratulations to Viacom for clinching the deal to buy Channel 5.

It’s a win, win that UK plc can attract this kind of inward investment to the creative industries. Richard Desmond must be a very happy man, too.

We will probably never know if there was any direct personal contact between Desmond and Viacom’s veteran chief Sumner Redstone.

Imagining the two of them negotiating a deal is quite a thought.

■ Desmond failed to reach his original target price of more than £700m, but the £450m price tag is a lot higher than the reputed £350m or so that the joint Discovery BSkyB bid was worth.

Apparently, the only other serious bidder in the final stages of the process was Scripps, already a significant force in British media due to joint ownership of UKTV. A rough calculation suggests that since he first bought Channel 5 –during 2010 when there was an advertising famine – Desmond is better off to the tune of perhaps £500m.

That’s approximately the sum you end up with when you subtract his costs and factor in the profits Channel 5 made for Northern & Shell.

With the benefit of hindsight, RTL must regret selling the network to him for £103.5m.

Not everyone salutes Desmond’s expletive-flecked style. But few would deny he is one smart operator.

■ Why, then, does Viacom want to get into UK free-to-air? In a nutshell, because pay-TV continues to mature.

And as Discovery has, um, discovered,

34

OFF MESSAGE traditional European commercial stations still pack a big punch with advertisers and audiences.

Think also of the content synergies across MTV, Nickelodeon (5’s main channel continues to keep preschoolers entertained with the Milkshake! strand), Comedy Central and Channel 5.

Should South Park end up being aired on one of Channel 5’s channels Off Message will tune in, for sure.

Expect beefed-up acquisitions across the terrestrial’s entire portfolio and other programme synergies.

What Viacom lacks is a print cross-promotion outlet, but arguably the power of the traditional press is overstated in an internet-driven age.

Should Channel 4 be worried by a Viacom-owned Channel 5? Deals for US shows, such as the much-praised Fargo, look likely to get tougher.

And it’s hard to see 5’s audience share heading south under its new owners.

■ Farewell, then, to the BBC’s incomparable attack dog, Jeremy Paxman – at least in his Newsnight guise.

One of the extraordinary consequences of the old grump’s departure is that the BBC Two current-affairs flagship now boasts an entirely female squad of presenters.

Having Laura Kuenssberg, Emily Maitlis and Kirsty Wark on board as the show’s triumvirate of anchors is unquestionably an achievement to be celebrated by the corporation.

For years, viewers and listeners have had to endure a phalanx of male news and current affairs presenters.

Why does the BBC appear to believe that Paxo must be replaced by another alpha male?

■ As the race gets underway to replace Chris Patten as BBC Trust Chairman, many familiar faces are

emerging as potential candidates.

There is one dark horse who may be worth considering: the former BBC Head of Corporate Affairs, Tina ­Stowell, who sits in the Lords as a Conservative peer.

She knows the BBC inside out.

Stowell was in situ at the height of the Hutton storm, and so knows all about difficult times at the Beeb.

Regardless of what the future holds for the Trust, having a woman like Stowell at the helm could be a big plus for Tony Hall as he navigates the toxic brew that is charter renewal.

■ It was good to see Andrew Mullins, who runs the London Evening Standard and The Independent as well as London Live, turn up at the recent RTS event on the new local station, dressed from tip to toe in full cycling regalia.

Or as the station’s head of news and current affairs, Vikki Cook, put it with trademark humour, “in fancy dress”.

Mullins is no slouch behind the handlebars. He is preparing for a 375km Italian ride. The aim is to complete the journey – which is far from flat – in just three days.

Off Messages wishes him well.

■ Vice News, as everybody knows, is making huge waves.

So big, in fact, that it might not be long before the BBC announces some tie-ups with the youth-friendly, online service.

One way of placating BBC Three audiences, perhaps…

■ On that subject, it was intriguing to hear BBC Trustee Richard Ayre tell Radio Times that axing BBC Three as a TV channel is “not a foregone conclusion”.

Perhaps Zai Bennett should have stuck around a tad longer.

May 2014 www.rts.org.uk Television

RTS PATRONS RTS Principal Patrons

BBC

RTS International Patrons

Discovery Corporate Services Ltd Liberty Global RTL Group Turner Broadcasting System Inc

Viacom International Media Networks Walt Disney Company

RTS Major Patrons

Accenture Channel 5 Deloitte Enders Analysis

FremantleMedia IMG Studios ITN KPMG

McKinsey and Co S4C STV Group UKTV

YouView

RTS Patrons

Autocue Channel Television Digital Television Group Ikegami Electronics UK ITV Anglia

ITV Granada ITV London ITV Meridian ITV Tyne Tees ITV West

ITV Yorkshire ITV Wales Lumina Search PricewaterhouseCoopers Quantel

Raidio Teilifis Eireann University College, Falmouth UTV Television Vinten Broadcast

Patron HRH The Prince of Wales

Chair of RTS Trustees John Hardie

CENTRES COUNCIL

AWARDS COMMITTEE CHAIRS

President Sir Peter Bazalgette

Honorary Secretary David Lowen

Vice-Presidents Dawn Airey Sir David Attenborough OM

Honorary Treasurer Mike Green

Who’s who at the RTS

CH CVO CBE FRS

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

BSkyB

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

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

EXECUTIVES

Chief Executive Theresa Wise Deputy Chief Executive Claire Price

Channel 4

Andy Batten-Foster Mike Best Charles Byrne Isabel Clarke Alex Connock Gordon Cooper Tim Hartley Kristin Mason Graeme Thompson Penny Westlake James Wilson Michael Wilson

SPECIALIST GROUP CHAIRS

Diversity Marcus Ryder

ITV

Awards & Fellowship Policy David Lowen

Craft & Design Awards TBC Television Journalism Awards Stewart Purvis CBE Programme Awards David Liddiment Student Television Awards Patrick Younge

Early Evening Events Dan Brooke IBC Conference Liaison Terry Marsh History & Archives Don McLean RTS Futures Camilla Lewis RTS Legends Paul Jackson

Television www.rts.org.uk May 2014

35

RTS LONDON 2014

CON FERENCE

PRINCIPAL SPONSOR

ADV IS ORY COM M IT T EE Rob Woodward

Chief Executive, STV (Chair of Advisory Committee)

Peter Bazalgette

John Hardie

Darren Childs

Steve Hewlett David Lynn

President, RTS

Chief Executive, UKTV

Alan Clements

Chief Exective, ITN

Executive Producer, STV

Exec VP and MD, Viacom International Media Networks

Stuart Cosgrove

Graham McWilliam

Director of Creative Diversity, Channel 4 Glasgow

Director of Corporate Affairs, BSkyB

Simon Pitts

Partner, Accenture

Director of Strategy & Transformation ITV; MD SDN, ITV

Susanna Dinnage

General Manager, Discovery Corporate Services

Cecile Frot-Coutaz

Chief Executive, FremantleMedia Group

Alex Graham Bobby Hain

Director of Channels, STV

Tony Hall

Director-General, BBC

Gavin Mann

Sonja Murdoch

Global Media & Entertainment Practice Manager, McKinsey & Co

Stewart Purvis Sue Robertson Jim Ryan

Chief Strategy Officer, Liberty Global

Ed Shedd

Partner, Deloitte

Martin Stott

Head of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs, Channel 5

9 SEPTEMBER KING’S PLACE, LONDON N1