Features


Reality round the clock

NBC’s large scale live event gameshow Million Second Quiz has ended after nearly 12 days of continuous competition and handing out the biggest prize in network history. But what does the show say about the future of the future of primetime reality shows? Jesse Whittock reports. Stephen Lambert’s London-based development team first conceived NBC’s Million […]

Comment: How social media is influencing reality development

Love it or hate it, reality TV has firmly cemented its place within pop culture, becoming a firm favourite with audiences and content creators around the world – spanning all ages and demographics. In the UK, whether it’s Geordie Shore, Big Brother or Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, reality has proved to be one of the […]

Fall TV season: overview and early trends

Julia Espérance, media consultant at Eurodata TV and service manager for the New on the Air (NOTA) programming service, analyses the top new shows from the latest TV season and finds that formats with a positive message or light-hearted in tone are winning eyeballs. Whether through comedy, challenge or music-based shows, broadcasters are still looking […]

Power Play: why celebs are becoming execs

As the global media superpowers march into ever more sectors, A-list actors, musicians, fashion gurus and novelists are taking control of television projects. Jesse Whittock reports on the rise of the celebrity superproducer. In the past, the glamorous worlds of film, sport, pop music and fashion looked down their noses at TV from behind the […]

ITV Studios moves UK broadcaster into the international spotlight

ITV has been the most active TV company in the M&A space in recent times. The UK broadcaster’s content arm has been driving that, buying production companies in the US, UK and Scandinavia. Its boss, Kevin Lygo, tells Stewart Clarke about his goals for ITVS and that its buying spree will continue. Soon after joining […]

Beta Film takes on the Mafia

Italian crime writer Roberto Saviano, whose mafia exposé Gomorrah lead to death threats, tells Jesse Whittock about the scripted TV remake of the book, which Beta Film launches in Cannes film. The real crime genre continues to pay for broadcasters, with ABC in Australia announcing Underbelly drama spin-off Fat Tony and Co. in August as […]

Viewpoint: In VOD we trust – how pay TV can combat OTT

In television, as with many other things in life, you have to keep the faith. Fifteen years ago, when UK telco BT thought broadband was just a passing fad and nobody thought you could ever watch a TV set without an aerial, I joined a small company that had developed the first video on demand […]

The War Report

With the 100th anniversary of the most terrible conflict in world history coming in 2014, Jesse Whittock identifies the projects and producers that will shape World War I in the minds of a new generation of TV viewers. War programming has the unique power to shock, appall and intrigue in equal measures, hence its enduring […]

Nancy Tellem: Lighting up the Xbox

Nancy Tellem is entertainment and digital media president at technology, software and hardware giant Microsoft where she runs the fledgling Xbox Entertainment Studios production unit. For more than a decade before that Tellem had been squarely in traditional media, in the US broadcast sector, where she was president of CBS Network Television Entertainment. “I’m looking […]

Cable sparks a US indie M&A frenzy

The international media groups that previously drove rounds of M&A activity among indies in the UK and Europe are now focused on acquisitions in the US as the cable sector and unscripted business boom. John Hazelton looks at who’s buying what, where opportunity lies and asks who’ll be next on to board the consolidation gravy […]