In recent years, Channel 4’s new national HQ in Leeds and the BBC’s relocation of 2,300 posts to Salford have dominated our perception of out-of-London programme production.
This is perhaps not surprising: the corporation has the largest Ofcom quota for UK production outside the M25 – 50% – followed by Channel 4 and ITV, who both have 35%, and Channel 5, with 10%.
So Game of Thrones is coming to an end and the world is quite rightly in mourning. But I’m not. Not just because I’m the only person in Belfast who hasn’t seen a single episode, or the only person in Belfast who hasn’t been an extra in an episode.
But because it means the amazing crew will finally be available for other work. That will be the enduring legacy of Game of Thrones and the hard work of everyone at NIScreen.
The broadcasting company is offering six training placements for talented TV professionals with a disability, and those from black, Asian, and minority backgrounds, to develop their commissioning skills.
Now in it’s third year, the six-month programme will place applicants into one of the BBC’s commissioning teams, including BBC Two, Arts, Drama, Entertainment, Popular Factual and Specialist Factual.
Based on conservationist Gerald Durrell’s series of books documenting his family’s time in Corfu in the 1930s, the forthcoming series will be written by BAFTA award nominee Simon Nye (Men Behaving Badly).
Two groups of mates will be jetting off to the Med joining thousands of tanned and toned twenty somethings for a once-in-a-lifetime party aboard one of Europe’s most lavish cruise liners.
This series joins the Anchored Cruise, where 2,500 young holidaymakers let their hair down with an itinerary of pool parties, DJs and some of the most exclusive events in the world.
“Since winning The Great British Bake Off I’ve been lucky to have had some amazing opportunities with the BBC," reads the statement, issued by the broadcaster on Hussain's behalf. "I believe that making it my home gives me the scope to work across such a unique range of diverse and interesting projects."
Back in the late 1990s, Ade Rawcliffe was working on Ainsley Harriott’s show, Party of a Lifetime. They were in Teesside, filming with children from a housing estate. They all had a question: was Rawcliffe Harriott’s wife or was she his “girlfriend”?
Ade (pronounced Addy) thinks that they were not used to seeing two black people in the same place at once. They might, it occurs to me, have been equally puzzled by the spectacle of two black people working on the same television programme.
