Thames Valley

TikTok has grown as a major cultural force over the past 18 months, spawning countless memes, trends and cultural moments that have set the Internet ablaze, along with launching direct on Samsung Smart TVs. With household names from the worlds of TV, sport and entertainment all joining its ranks - Strictly Come Dancing to I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, Gordon Ramsay to Jamie Oliver - being part of the TikTok conversation is now an unmissable destination for all major media brands.

Legal and commercial teams from across the UK’s top broadcasters and content studios have had to be creative in how they operate to keep programming on our screens and production teams on set, alongside grappling with the challenges of when even these were not possible, all to keep the nation entertained and to protect the livelihoods of the thousands working in TV production.

The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings College, Cambridge, was first held on Christmas Eve 1918. Its fame grew after the service was heard on radio in 1928 and, with the exception of 1930, it has been broadcast at home and abroad ever since. In 1954 Christmas Carols from Kings was televised on Christmas Day as part of a live exchange of programmes with other countries with Midnight Mass coming from Paris on Christmas Eve and Winter Games from Switzerland on Boxing Day.

Second Star Production’s successful hybrid reality dating show Flirty Dancing has two seasons under its belt; they share their insights and experiences behind this refreshingly new dating show format. Two strangers rehearse a dance separately with members of Diversity, Ashley Banjo’s dance team. The first time they meet is to dance together in a beautiful location, then walk away without speaking. Will they want to meet up again after sharing their emotional dance?

Early in the last decade, a tsunami in Japan devastated the factory that supplied HDCAM-SR tapes - the format used to deliver most TV programmes. As people sought an alternative, the uptake of file-based production was accelerated. An informal organisation was formed - called the Digital Production Partnership - that seized on this opportunity to hasten the move to end-to-end digital, by creating a new file-based delivery specification.

Factual specialists Arrow International Media addressed the uncertainties of lockdown by convening a virtual task force, from every level of the company, to brainstorm innovative ideas. Their top priority was to consider their assets – over 4,000 hours of rushes and completed series from both the Arrow Media and Arrow Pictures' archives which could be examined and catalogued to create new programmes. The sheer size of the task seemed insurmountable, so their solution was to invest in AI, which could both interpret the images and even identify faces, people and locations.

The programme features archive footage, and contributions from Robert Seatter, the Head of BBC History; Phillip Schofield, TV Presenter past and present at TVC; and Roger Bunce, TVC Studio Cameraman in the 1960s.