The return reinforces Sky’s commitment to high-quality year-round drama which has to date included hit shows like You, Me and the Apocalypse, Hooten and the Lady and Fungus the Bogeyman.

Later this month, NBC­Universal will launch Hayu, a new subscription online video service devoted to reality television shows, such as The Real Housewives franchise and Don’t Tell the Bride. It follows hard on the heels of Seeso, another subscription video on-demand (SVoD) offering from NBCU, but this time devoted to comedy and entertainment shows, ranging from Saturday Night Live to Monty Python’s Flying Circus.  

Barbara Slater, the Director of BBC Sport, likes to bang the drum for digital. Even so, last year she found the time to blog on the corporation’s website just six times.

Four of those six posts apologetically explained why the BBC had been forced to cede flagship rights and was likely to make further cuts in the future.

The posts unpicked why the BBC, after six decades, had to surrender Open golf and also give up on a, perhaps vainglorious, bid to roll back the years by making the Beeb the exclusive home of Formula 1.

The channel will launch in September and will be developed entirely in-house by the Vice creative team.

Viceland launched in the US and Canada to great acclaim in February 2016, offering hours of original content and attracting big names, including Gaycation with Ellen Page and Ian Daniel, Huang’s World with Eddie Huang, F*ck, That’s Delicious with Action Bronson, and Balls Deep with Thomas Morton.

1. Happy Valley

The immensely popular show returned to our screens in early February, welcoming back tormented police woman Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) and TV’s most feared man, James Norton as rapist Tommy Lee Royce.

The November London Centre event – “It started with a book” – examined how books are adapted for the telly, drawing lessons from three very different projects.

The Hank Zipzer books for children – written by Henry Winkler, who played the Fonz in vintage US sitcom Happy Days – have been turned into a returning CBBC series.

Walker Productions Managing Director Helen McAleer, who had seen Winkler play Captain Hook in pantomime, was determined to make a version with the actor.

Gary Davey is one of pay-TV’s most experienced executives. He was part of the team that launched Sky TV in the late 1980s. Now, after holding senior positions in Sky Italia, Sky Deutschland and Star TV (when he was based in Hong Kong), he is back in the UK. He was appointed Sky’s Managing Director for Content in January 2015.