Channel 4

"Five months ago the Channel 4 team set out to determine what the new ‘video day’ for consumers is really made of, with an original research project. I will talk a little about what we did and what we found and then some experts will join me on stage to help interpret our research.

To make sure we were properly prepared for this RTS discussion, we set ourselves some harder questions than just ‘what is the video day?’:

The agenda-setting programme, titled Too Much to Watch, will see James Corden OBE give his first industry interview since returning to the UK, and Bryan Lourd, Co-Chairman of Creative Artists Agency in conversation with multi-Academy Award® winner Emma Thompson.

The benefit concert to raise money for the victims of famine in Ethiopia drew an estimated 1.5 billion television viewers worldwide.

Music promoter Harvey Goldsmith – who orchestrated Live Aid’s Wembley concert and, two decades later, the Live 8 benefit concerts – talked about his career with lawyer and broadcaster Andrew Eborn for an RTS London online event in July.

It’s no easy task to think of a programme that’s done more for cutting-edge British drama than Top Boy. Having made its debut on Channel 4 in 2011 and running for two series before Netflix revived it for a further three, the gritty drama follows the drug gangs of London’s fictional Summerhouse estate in Hackney with exemplary authenticity.

Ask Alex Mahon to name the best bits about her job and without hesitation she says it’s when outstanding programmes receive the recognition they deserve. It could be a breakthrough comedy such as Derry Girls or Russell T Davies’s bittersweet It’s a Sin – or the recent Cannes Grand Prix winner, Film4’s The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer’s German-language Holocaust film based on the Martin Amis novel.

Jones stars as Emily, a young woman who has lost her state benefits after being made redundant. She is highly educated, hilarious and quick witted, but she also has very little left to lose, and so building an illegal drugs empire seems like the natural next step.

Emily’s cerebral palsy works in her favour; all her life people have been overlooking her and pretending she’s not there, and now this means her new business flies completely under the radar. Her disability becomes the perfect disguise.

The first series celebrated inclusivity, with the city of Birmingham at the heart of the show. Each week, Lycett welcomed famous faces to the banks of Digbeth, including actor Dame Joanna Lumley, comedian and actor Rob Delaney, comedian Judi Love, presenter Alison Hammond, model and activist Munroe Bergdorf, reality star Gemma Collins and presenter Joel Dommett.

In partnership with the National Film and Television School, the programme will provide free masterclasses, workshops, training and wellbeing sessions across two weeks in October 2023.

The sessions will be delivered online to ensure it is accessible to all freelancers across the country, and will explore topics as varied as financial planning, networking and development.

Sinead Rocks, Managing Director of Nations and Regions at Channel 4, said: “The TV production sector is facing unprecedented challenges and we know that many freelancers are struggling.