RTS event

We’re bringing a scientific view of sharks to the world. They’re not villains – they’re just misunderstood.” Executive Producer Drew Jones was discussing National Geographic’s innovative series Shark Attack 360 at an RTS London online event in July.

The show uses 3D creation tool Unreal Engine to bring the presenter – marine biologist Dr Diva Amon – up close to virtual sharks so she can explain their behaviour and predatory characteristics.

Last year was a sobering one for television as a post-Covid boom that had seen production and advertising revenues surge fizzled out. Will 2024 see the industry refill its glasses and toast its own success – or is the bubbly still flat?

To answer this question, the RTS assembled a top-notch panel for its first national event of the year; late last month, it asked panel members for their 2024 TV predictions.

Advertising revenues would bounce back during the year, Claire Enders, the founder of Enders Analysis, told a packed house in central London.

The greatest comebacks since Lazarus – or lazy commissioning? An RTS national event in mid-October that boasted a panel of executives responsible for resurrecting many entertainment shows offered some answers.

Tim Davie, the BBC’s Director-General, has called for urgent action to ensure that British media can prosper into the 2030s. He said the BBC must work together with politicians, policymakers, regulators, and other parts of the sector to secure the future of a world-leading UK media market.

The series follows the fortunes of a fictional Dublin crime family, the Kinsellas, which is waging a bloody gangland war with a local cartel, the Cunninghams.

The lead director of the eight-part series, Diarmuid Goggins, spoke to RTS Republic of Ireland Chair Agnes Cogan at a Society event in late October about his work on the US-Irish co-production.

Women’s football is “a success story but it’s only just beginning”, argued Dawn Airey, Chair of the Barclays FA Women's Super League and former Channel 5 Chair. “If you can’t see it, you can’t be it. We want young women to see you can play football at a very high level and make a really good career out of it.”

Free-to-air access, she said, was “absolutely critical”, adding that women’s football has to balance “revenue and reach. We need to drive money into the game but we absolutely want engagement, and to get engagement you need that fee-to-air opportunity.”

At an RTS event in September, some of the leading figures in sports broadcasting recalled the moment when the Covid-19 lockdown brought down the curtain on live sport in the UK.

“It was a moment that had been coming,” said Sky Sports Managing Director Rob Webster, looking back to the March lockdown. “Our Italian colleagues were ahead of us in terms of the virus and their sport. It was only a matter of time.