North west

I’ve always loved going on rollercoasters: the sharp curves, sudden changes of direction and speed – a few minutes of pleasure to take you out of the norm. But too much of anything is never good, is it? And it feels like our industry has been on this particular ride for too long.

I can’t really compare these last few years since Covid to a fairground ride. It’s certainly not as enjoyable. But, in the North West, us TV folk like a challenge. We rise to it. The ups and downs are something we have always ridden.

The £6bn post-pandemic boom in TV and film production is welcome news amid the uncertainty caused by the freeze to the BBC licence fee and the planned privatisation of Channel 4. 

The global expansion of content platforms and the UK’s fantastic reputation as a country that delivers excellent programmes means that there is more TV and film being made here than ever before. But there is a problem: we are predicted to have a shortfall of 40,000 creative-sector workers by 2025. 

It was Groundhog Day for me when news broke that the BBC was proposing to cut £25m from the BBC England budget by 2022. Flashback to redundancies across regional programme teams, the culling of popular titles and complaints from audiences seeing and hearing less about where they live.

Manchester Metropolitan University students took home the Animation prize with Luz and the University of Central Lancashire’s Jamie Walsh won the Short Form award with Tia.

BBC Breakfast presenter Sally Nugent presented the awards, which were held at the Lowry Theatre in Salford. The special guest was former Coronation Street actor and co-star of new BBC One sitcom, Scarborough, Catherine Tyldesley.

Earlier in the day, RTS North West held its annual Student Media Conference at the Lowry Theatre.

This year, it featured fellow Mancunian Jason Manford – comedian, actor, TV presenter and quiz show panellist – in conversation with former Coronation Street regular Catherine Tyldesley.

Manford’s start in show business could not have been more different to Wilson, who joined ITN as a trainee reporter after graduating from Cambridge University. Manford was 16 and working in a Manchester pub with a weekly comedy night, where he was lucky enough to watch the likes of Caroline Aherne and Peter Kay.

The actor, who has won two RTS North West awards for her performances in ITV soap Coronation Street and BBC Two factual drama Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster, was giving this year’s Anthony H Wilson Memorial Lecture.

During the course of a conversation with actor and director Noreen Kershaw, Hesmondhalgh proved to be the embodiment of the words of the late Granada Reports anchor and music impresario, Wilson, who memorably summed up his city: “This is Manchester: we do things differently here.”

The drama about the murder of 11 year-old Rhys Jones in Liverpool in 2007 was named the region’s Best Drama, Jeff Pope was awarded the Best Script Writer award and Sinead Keenan won the prize for Best Performance in a drama.

More than 450 industry professionals and guests attended the awards ceremony, which was held at the Hilton Deansgate in Manchester and hosted by Robert Rinder from ITV court show, Judge Rinder.