European broadcasters continue to scramble to adapt to the Covid-19 pandemic, with the UK’s ITV unveiling a £500k ($615k) development fund while Channel 4 and Spain’s Atresmedia cut pay. ITV’s director of TV Kevin Lygo revealed that the fund is designed to accelerate the search for new ideas and content for the channel to play […]
The Edinburgh TV Festival (ETF) is to become a digital-only event as a result of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The 2020 Festival will not have a physical presence this year but organisers said it will still deliver The MacTaggart Lecture, controller sessions and its awards, as well as the TV Foundation’s talent schemes. Digital sessions […]
UK broadcasters and producers have called on the culture secretary to ensure that TV industry freelancers will qualify for financial support during the Coronavirus crisis. The government announced a package of support last week, but leading industry figures still have concerns that a swathe of those employed in the TV sector will not be covered. […]
The UK government will pay self-employed workers affected by Covid-19 up to £2,500 ($3,000) per month as part of a new rescue package, but industry bodies have said delaying payments until June will heavily impact those in the freelance sector. The income support scheme means those whose annual profits in the last tax year were […]
UK broadcasters Channel 4 and the BBC have unveiled a raft of new programming as they look to attract viewers during the Covid-19 lockdown and fill gaps left by the cancellation of major events. With events such as the Olympics and music festival Glastonbury postponed for 12 months, the BBC has said it is preparing […]
The UK’s public service broadcasters (PSB) have added their voices to the cries of support for freelancers working in the broadcasting industry who are facing a sudden lack of income due to the Coronavirus pandemic. In a joint letter to UK chancellor Rishi Sunak, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and S4C highlighted the […]
The Disney+ app has attracted over five million downloads in its first 24 hours of availability across Europe, according to third-party figures. App Annie, which measures and monitors app downloads, said the app for the newly launched service had been downloaded millions of times across the UK, Ireland, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland – […]
The latest addition to TBI’s ongoing coverage of Covid-19’s impact on the content business is from Alan Erson, MD and executive producer at Australia’s WildBear Entertainment, who explores the huge potential and opportunities emerging around archive programming in the current environment. As TV production shuts down across the globe amid the Covid-19 crisis and viewers […]
Online TV rights marketplace TRX is offering its service for free for all users during the Coronavirus pandemic. With trade fairs and markets cancelled across the globe, face-to-face meetings have become a near-impossibility for buyers and distributors. TRX joins other content platforms such as ProgramBuyer and ONE Lite to have gone free in recent days […]
As part of TBI’s continuing coverage of the impact of Covid-19 on the content business, we speak to Harriet Armston-Clarke, director of TVF International, who discusses how the UK-based factual distributor has rapidly innovated to deal with the impact of the pandemic. What a difference a week makes. Seven days ago, TVF International was in […]
