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Disney+ to return to Rutshire for second series of Rivals

The official poster for Rivals sees the cast on the lawn of a huge Rutshire estate

The announcement came in the form of an Instagram reel of scenes and quotes from the first series. According to Alex Hassell's local lothario and MP Rupert Campbell-Black, the second helping is "guaranteed to be even more pleasurable." 

Dominic Treadwell-Collins and Laura Wade led the writers' room who adapted the first half of Jilly Cooper's 'bonkbuster', bringing to riotous life the heady days and TV franchise battles of Cooper's heightened 1980s.

Assessing TV ratings in the streaming age

ohn Moulding, Amy Tocock, Neil Mortensen and Lucy Gregory sit on a panel

Once upon a time, measuring TV was straightforward. Channel controllers and production heads would wait anxiously for the overnight viewing figures to land on their desks. Ratings would be assessed on a single broadcast transmission. The overnights could determine a show’s fate – and sometimes the jobs of those who had commissioned it.  

Multi-channel TV complicated the picture, but the arrival of catch-up, then streaming and platforms such as YouTube and TikTok really upset the applecart on collecting and analysing the vital data pored over by ad agencies and their clients.

Wildstar shines a light on the queens of the jungle

A bonobo in the Congo jungle

“None of us could believe it hadn’t been done before,” recalled Chloe Sarosh, discussing Wildstar Films’ natural history series about female-led societies. As the series producer and writer of Queens, she was there from the start.

Five years, 12 countries and more than 1,700 days in the field later, seven engrossing episodes have come to National Geographic and Disney+.

RTS Midlands looks at Disney's new F1 documentary series with Keanu Reeves

New documentary Brawn was described as “Succession with racing cars” at an RTS Midlands event in November. Executive producer Neil Duncanson said of the thrilling story: “Conspiracy theories, money, power, betrayal – it’s all there.”

Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story, a four-part Disney+ series, tells how an underfinanced team bought for £1 managed to defeat the greatest names in F1. And it certainly appeals to far more viewers than just motor racing fans, as director Daryl Goodrich explained.

Disney sets date for second helping of The Bear as Bob Odenkirk joins cast

The first saw world renowned chef Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri) and Richie Jerimovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach)—all returning for the upcoming series—just about manage to save his family's grimy Chicago sandwich restaurant from financial ruin, thanks to the huge tomato can cash windfall.

The second will see them look to transform the joint into the city's next best eatery which, given the windfall, you'd expect to be plain sailing. But, reads the press release, "it turns out that the only thing harder than running a restaurant is opening a new one."

Tom Hiddleston, Sophia Di Martino, Kate Herron and Michael Waldron discuss Loki

Hiddleston left the sell out crowd at a panel discussion hosted by the Royal Television Society Wednesday evening (March 2) hungry for more details but the star of the Marvel show about the god of mischief and chaos, couldn't and wouldn't be drawn. "There is going to be a series two," Hiddleston smiled mischievously. "That's a complete sentence I think. I'll get into real trouble if I say more."

DAZN's Kevin Mayer: A man ahead of the curve

At the beginning of August, Reese Witherspoon sold her company, Hello Sunshine. Even in a world where film-stars-turned-brands have become 10 a penny, the Oscar winner made international headlines thanks to the jaw-dropping sale price – reportedly $900m. Witherspoon said she was “thrilled to be working with Blackstone, Kevin, and Tom to grow a next-generation media company”.

'Out with the old thinking’: How PSBs are responding to the streamers success

Queer Eye, which ITV produces for Netflix (credit: Netflix)

At first glance, the outlook looks less than sunny for traditional broadcasters faced with competition from Netflix and the other streamers. Dig a little deeper and the situation looks a lot more nuanced.  

That was the main takeaway from the second of two Steve Hewlett Scholarship debates, “British broadcasting in crisis?”, organised jointly by the RTS and Media Society.