commissioning

Dating show Hot Property will return for a second series

Credit: BBC

The series sees young singletons search for love by teaming up with Filly and snooping around the homes of three potential suitors, before choosing to go on a blind date with one of them.

Someone’s bedroom can reveal a lot about a person and the singletons will get to see if their potential dates have any skeletons hidden in their closet.

Sophie Rundle and Martin Compston to lead new BBC thriller

Sophie Rundle and Martin Compston (Credit: BBC)

Created by RTS Award-winning writer Nicole Taylor (Three Girls), the emotional thriller focuses on wealthy couple Dan (Compston) and Emily (Rundle) who are head over heels in love and live a beautiful house just outside of Glasgow.

Their lives seem perfect, but there is one thing missing: a baby.

A chance encounter introduces them to Kaya – played by Mirren Mack in her television debut – an 18-year-old from the other side of the city.

BBC Arts commissions new programmes in year-long celebration of literature

Novels That Shaped Our World Festival panel (Credit: BBC)

The programmes explore both classic and contemporary fiction, from celebrated authors and those less well-known.

BBC’s regular book programmes such as The Radio Two Book Club with Jo Whiley, The Verb on BBC Radio Three, World Book Club on the World Service and Open Book on Radio Four will feature specials throughout the year.

A festival has also been set up in partnership with libraries and reading groups around the UK.

TV production outside the M25 is alive and well

C+I’s most popular original show, Murdertown featuring Hull (Credit: A&E Networks)

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%.

Belfast celebrates the Game of Thrones effect

Kieran Doherty (Credit: Stellify Media)

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.

BBC opens applications for Content Commissioner development programme

(Credit: BBC)

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.

‘Sun, sea and sass’: Channel 4 announces new holiday series Shipmates

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.

Breaking the mould

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.