ITV Studios’ Managing Director, Julian Bellamy, wants people to know that he is open for business for creative talent and great ideas – wherever they may come from.

“We’re in a world now where creative talent has never been more in demand, more diverse, more commercial, more mobile – and if you don’t embrace that as a producer, you won’t survive and prosper,” he said. 

Bellamy already has a large talent pool to choose from. ITV’s strategy of acquiring independent production companies means that it owns 23 labels in the UK alone, with investment in a further five.

It’s a good time to sit down with Ben Frow, Channel 5’s director of programmes. A purple patch that started with the station winning Channel of the Year at the Edinburgh TV Awards last August has just been topped with the station’s best Christmas since 2005 – and all this after Frow’s “carnage” assessment of the first half of the year.

From his now much more comfortable perch, the executive is happy to reel off a catalogue of titles that, in those first months of 2018, passed most of the nation by.

Teachers Training to Kill

Monday: Channel 4, 9.00pm

Teachers Training to Kill is a one-off documentary that explores gun control in America and the disturbing amount of mass shootings taking place in US schools.

The documentary follows a group of teachers from Faster, a controversial summer school where teachers are trained to operate guns and potentially shoot to kill.

Brexit: The Uncivil War

Monday: Channel 4, 9.00pm

Created by James Graham (A Brilliant Young Mind), Brexit: The Uncivil War explores the inside story behind one of the most divisive campaigns in British politics, Vote Leave.

Set during the pinnacle of the EU referendum in 2016, the chaotic drama follows Dominic Cummings (Benedict Cumberbatch), the less-known mastermind behind the Leave campaign.

The announcement that Channel 4 will be coming to Leeds literally lit up the city. Social media went mad. Leeds City Region’s #4Sparks campaign had prevailed, and Leeds University floodlit its iconic Parkinson Building in celebration.

Friends and neighbours with no connection to the media were talking about it as a good thing. A new wave of prosperity, jobs and creative pride was on the way.

Moreover, we had been the underdog and beaten off the challenge from the two Andies (mayors Andy Street, heading the Birmingham bid, and Andy Burnham, in Manchester).

Derry Girls

Channel 4 & All4

A coming-of-age sitcom written by Lisa McGee, Derry Girls aired back in January on Channel 4.

Nadiya’s Asian Odyssey

Monday: BBC One, 9.00pm

Former Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain uncovers her familial connections to southeast Asia and explores the culinary arts of Cambodia, Thailand and Nepal.

In the first of a two-part series, Hussain begins her journey by visiting Cambodia and Thailand, learning about the culture of these two countries by interacting with the people and, of course, the food.

Find out what tasty dishes her travels will inspire.

Virgin Media Television’s director of programming said: “We’re constantly being told that linear TV is dead, but the facts actually present a different picture.”

In Ireland, Virgin Media is “bucking the trend and showing continual growth in audiences”, a result, he claimed, of a “notable step up in [the] scale, ambition and quality” of programming.

My Brilliant Friend

Monday: Sky Atlantic, 9.00pm

Based on Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels, My Brilliant Friend centres on the relationship between two childhood friends from Naples.

Black Earth Rising

Monday: BBC Two, 9.00pm

The thrilling political drama comes to a close with a key villain finally being unmasked. Kate (Michaela Coel) also finds what she’s been looking for. A collective guilt hangs over her and Michael (John Goodman) over the Rwandan genocide and the reprisals that saw Hutu refugees massacred in camps.

The different narratives interwoven throughout the series are knitted together in the finale with several truths being revealed.