RTS London

Harper worked as a floor assistant on the BBC One sci-fi classic in the 1960s – before moving on to directing episodes in the 1980s and again in the noughties after Russell T Davies regenerated the Doctor.

Harper started young in show business. At nine, he went to the Italia Conti stage school on Saturday mornings for elocution lessons. He liked it so much that he pleaded with his parents to send him to the school, but the fees were a problem. The solution was for the young Harper to take on acting roles to pay his way.

BBC Studioworks opened its doors at the end of October to host RTS London Centre for a hot-ticket tour of its facilities.

Three studios, that BBC aficionados would know as TC1, TC2 and TC3, offer large and mid-sized studio spaces available to hire. Reception is to the side of the building reflecting the smaller studio footprint, rather than the grand original reception of yesteryear, which now hosts the glamorous hotel and apartments within the main building.

Fings ain’t wot they used to be for the traditional television industry. Netflix and Amazon are already affecting viewing levels, with Apple and Google set to join Facebook at the feast. Will it be fangs for the memory for telly?

Faangs, an acronym for the US tech and media giants Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google, offer TV the modern way – streamed over the internet and watched when and where the viewer wants. Television, meanwhile, is lumbered with old-fashioned schedules.

Having inadvertently found myself in the headlines twice in the past month, I’ve given up trying to understand what makes today’s news media pay attention.

Returning from the summer break, I pitched up at the Big Tent Ideas Festival, held in a field near Cambridge, to debate the future of AI and machine learning. To my nerdy mind, fears of massive job losses and robot control, stoked by people who can barely spell “algorithm”, are misplaced.

The International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) drew almost 56,000 people to Amsterdam in September, a small decrease on the year before. However, the number of conference delegates increased by 14% on the year before.

Channel 4 chief operating officer Keith Underwood, who chaired the IBC content steering group this year, argued that the annual media entertainment and technology show had been a success.

“Building a buzz 3: social media masterclass” in late September was the third in a series of linked events run by the RTS centre over the past 18 months, following “Building a buzz: what makes a good PR” campaign and “Building a buzz: what makes a good promo”.

The rise in technology, diversity and online regulation were discussed by experts in television in front an audience of industry professionals.

BBC's Tony Hall, Ofcom's Sharon White and Secretary of State for DCMS The RT Hon Jeremy Wright MP delivered speeches at the conference, and ITV's Chief Executive Carolyn McCall spoke for the first time since her appointment during a conversation with Tim Hincks.

Watch the full sessions from the conference below. You can read more about this year's RTS London Conference in the October issue of Television magazine.