London

RTS London Student Awards 2016

This year's RTS London Student Awards Ceremony will be hosted by Ore Oduba, the rising star of sports broadcasting and a regular face on the UK’s leading morning news programme, BBC Breakfast,

Tickets are available for the nominees and their university staff, with 20 available on ballot for members to attend and network with the next generation of TV creatives.

New crime drama Miss Scarlet and The Duke to air on Alibi

Kate Phillips and Stuart Martin (Credit: UKTV)

Set in nineteenth century London, Miss Scarlet and The Duke chronicles the adventures of the first ever female detective in Victorian London.

Kate Phillips (Peaky Blinders) plays the headstrong Eliza Scarlet who is left penniless when her father dies and marriage is her only hope of financial security.

Determined to provide for herself, Scarlet takes over her father’s detective agency, but soon realises she needs a partner if she is to operate in this man’s world.

James Cordon's Late Late Show is coming back to Britain

(Credit: Sky)

Corden will again host a star-studded line-up for the show’s second UK adventure, with guests including Cher, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Niall Horan and the Foo Fighters.

The episodes will be broadcast from the historic Central Hall in Westminster, and the show’s signature musical and comedy segments, such as Crosswalk: The Musical and Take a Break, will be given a new British twist.

The show holds the YouTube record for the most-watched late-night clip with Adele’s Carpool Karaoke, which has more than 180 million views.

Building a Buzz: What makes a good PR campaign?

Chaired by Trevor Morris, Professor of Public Relations at Richmond University and former CEO of Chime Public Relations, the event showcased the work of three PR experts.

They included Taylor Herring managing partner James Herring, who admitted that public relations cannot work miracles in television: “The product needs to be great – if you’ve got a terrible TV show, you can have the best PR campaign in the world and no one will be there for the second episode.”

The Crown and Sherlock among RTS Craft & Design Awards nominations

The awards recognise the huge variety of skills involved in programme production from editing to lighting, and costume design to digital effects. 

BBC dramas lead the way in nominations. Taboo, which stars Tom Hardy is up for six awards, whilst Broken and Three Girls received four nominations each. 

Three Girls director Philippa Lowthorpe received a nomination in the Director - Drama category alongside Euros Lyn for Damilola, Our Loved Boy and Julian Jarrold for The Witnesses for the Prosecution, all for BBC One. 

Television: what happens next?

The managing director of media consultancy Decipher looked to a future where more and more households – which, he said, for a family of four, now have an average 25 screens – would be able to easily connect all their TVs, computers, tablets and phones into a single “whole home network”.

Newish products such as the Sky Q box allow viewers to watch around the house and it and other developments, argued Walley, marked “yet another shift [in power] to the platforms” and away from the broadcasters.

London Centre admits BBC Two’s Hospital

“We thought it was the right time to do something big about the NHS – it was encountering lots of problems and it was being treated as a political football.

“We wanted to get over what was happening right now in the NHS and aimed for broadcast in January when the NHS often faces a winter crisis,” explained BBC Two commissioning editor Danny Horan at the event, which was held at ITV London Studios.

Conservation of Big Ben to be revealed in new documentary

Big Ben

This is a three year project undertaken by Channel 4 and ITN Productions, which gives them unprecedented access into the Big Ben refurbishment. The world famous landmark will disappear from view behind scaffolding for the next three years, and will undergo an extensive £29 million refurbishment in its 157 year history.

It will be documented in 3x60 minute programmes, with the first in 2017 to introduce audiences to the current state of Big Ben, as well as the dedicated architects, engineers, clock makers, stonemasons and scaffolders who will repair it.

Are we ready for Ultra-HD?

The Digital TV Group, the cross-industry organisation that defines how technology delivers digital TV in the UK, hosted the event at the end of September.

It boasted a panel chaired by DTG Chief Executive Richard Lindsay-Davies; and featuring Nigel Walley, MD of consultancy Decipher; Andy Quested, head of technology, BBC HD and Ultra-HD; and Tom Griffiths, director of broadcast and distribution technology at ITV.

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