BBC

TV industry professionals share their tips at the RTS Midlands Careers Fair 2019

Doctors star Elisabeth Dermot Walsh at the RTS Midlands Careers Fair 2019 (Credit: Nick Robinson)

Alongside Q&A panel sessions with top execs who work on some of the country’s biggest shows, practical workshops In the exhibition hall included how to make drama with BBC One’s Doctors in their specially created hospital set, filming on smartphones, using drones and how to make a podcast.

The major broadcasters joined more than 40 exhibitors from across the industry to give attendees one-to-one advice on how to break into the industry, from creating the perfect CV to gaining professional experience.

BBC Two announces new crime thriller Giri/Haji

Takehiro Hira as Kenzo in Giri/Haji (Credit: BBC)

Giri/Haji (Duty/Shame) follows Kenzo Moru (Takehiro Hira), a Tokyo detective who must travel to London in search of his allegedly murderous brother Yuto (Yosuke Kubozuka), whom many believe to be already dead.

Accused of brutally killing the nephew of a Japanese mobster, Yuto’s actions threaten to unleash a gang war in Tokyo. In London, separated from any semblance of familiarity, Kenzo must navigate this strange new city to uncover whether his brother is guilty, or indeed still alive.

Mark Thompson warns government policies endanger the BBC at the Steve Hewlett Memorial Lecture

Mark Thompson, President and CEO of The New York Times Company (Credit: Paul Hampartsoumian)

Giving the third Steve Hewlett Memorial Lecture at London’s Westminster University, he accused policy makers of largely concentrating “on tightening the funding pressure and other constraints on the BBC further” including “the disastrous withdrawal of funding free licence fees for the over 75’s” agreed in the 2016 Charter now coming into full effect.  

Will Boris bail out the BBC in licence fee row?

The National Pensioners Convention has called on the government to fund over-75s’ licences (Credit: NPC)

On 10 June, the licence fee time bomb – primed by Chancellor Gordon Brown and set ticking by his successor George Osborne – duly exploded, as forecast back in February’s Television*.

By granting the over-75s a free TV licence (Brown) and then transferring the cost and responsibility from the government to the BBC (Osborne), the two chancellors locked the corporation in a no-win situation. Claire Enders, of Enders Analysis, argues that the deal was “illegitimate” and never affordable: “It was a lose-lose for the BBC, its viewers and listeners.”

Steven Knight on his childhood glimpse at the Peaky Blinders world to working with Brad Pitt

The screenwriter about to become a studio mogul; the boardgame inventor whose next drama will launch Apple’s foray into television; the Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? creator nominated for an Oscar – there are many ways to paraphrase the extraordinary career of Steven Knight. Let’s start, however, with the blacksmith’s son who launched a million haircuts.