Advanced Television

Production

Sky shares the Love

BSkyB has made another significant investment in UK content with the acquisition of a 70 per cent stake in Love Productions, one of the UK’s leading independent production companies. The investment forms part of Sky’s strategy to grow a broad, international content business spanning broadcasting, production and distribution. Love Productions is a UK-based independent production […]

July 21, 2014

Celebrities partner for comedy production house

Miranda Hart and David Walliams, two of Britain’s best known comedic talents, have teamed up with renowned TV producer Jo Sargent to form King Bert Productions and develop new mainstream comedy and comedy entertainment content for broadcasters, whilst also looking to foster new talent for the genre. BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, […]

July 21, 2014

Microsoft shuts down Xbox Entertainment Studios

Microsoft has confirmed it is shutting down its Xbox Entertainment Studios – the company responsible for making original content for its Xbox Live subscribers. The planned Halo TV series will, however, remain unaffected. The news follows the announcement that Microsoft is to cut 18,000 jobs over the next six months, marking the biggest cutbacks in […]

July 18, 2014

UK indie TV production sector worth £3bn+

The UK’s independent television production sector is now worth more than £3billion to the British economy – quadruple the sector’s value only nine years ago. An annual report published by Pact, the indie sector’s trade association, shows how the sector has grown year-on-year. International earnings grew by 12 per cent to £939million in 2013. This […]

July 18, 2014

RTL quits India joint-venture

RTL has called it a day on its production joint-venture with India’s Reliance Broadcast Networks. The end result of the joint-venture was the Big RTL Thrill dubbed channel, and in which Reliance bought out total control in April this year. RTL has now seemingly exited the India market. Reliance is currently seeking a variation in […]

July 16, 2014By Chris Forrester

French TV in production doldrums

Europe’s economic pressures have badly affected TV production in countries like France, Spain and Italy. A recent report from IHS Technology which specifically focused on France, says that the country’s ad market, already extremely fragile and having been in decline now for three years, is set to contract another 1 per cent this year and […]

July 15, 2014By Chris Forrester

Creative Industries invest £37m in skills development

The UK’s Creative Industries have come together in their largest-ever collaboration, and successfully levered public investment to match their own contribution to support skills and talent development and ensure their continuous growth and global competitiveness. This investment is the successful result of a bid to the second round of the Employer Ownership Pilot (EOP2), which […]

July 14, 2014By Colin Mann

BBC to compete on production

Speaking at the ‘Future of the Licence Fee’ seminar at City University in London, Tony Hall, Director-General of the BBC, has outlined plans for the Corporation to adopt a mantra of ‘compete or compare’, including raising the possibility of major changes to BBC in-house production. He also announced a desire to extend competition where it […]

July 10, 2014By Colin Mann

AOL content for Barcroft TV

Barcroft Media, the UK factual content producer and provider, has signed a deal with premium video platform, AOL On, to feature its burgeoning short-form content channel on Barcroft TV. Under the terms of the deal, Barcroft Media content will now be available to view across the AOL On Network, the on-demand video platform. AOL On […]

July 8, 2014

ECB strikes Australia TV deal

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has secured a major Australian broadcast rights deal with Fox Sports. The News Corp-owned pay-TV broadcaster will air live coverage of the five-match Test series between England and India, as well as the five-match one-day international series and T20 international between the sides later in the year. The […]

July 4, 2014