STV

There has long been a technology skills gap in TV due to the competitive recruitment of graduates in related fields, and despite the best efforts of employers, that gap remains.

As Freeview’s Head of Technology Partnerships, Alex Russell, acknowledged, “It’s certainly true that companies like Google and other tech giants can pay higher graduate salaries. As a smaller company though we offer a different sort of environment with the same benefits around flexible working, an exciting range of projects, a great pension. It’s just about getting ourselves noticed.”

Due to lockdown restrictions the match will be played behind closed doors, but the game will be broadcast live on ITV and STV.

As Coronavirus is the biggest global crisis for vulnerable children and families since the Second World War, the two teams, England and Soccer Aid World XI FC, will come together to ‘Play for Generation Covid’.

The money raised helps children to get the best start in life, but this year it will also help stop the spread of coronavirus and limit the impact on their lives through the provision of clean water and lifesaving vaccinations.

The guidelines will allow productions to get up and running again, with the emphasis on the safety and well-being of employees.

The guide will be applicable to a broad range and scale of TV programmes of all genres and have been created with the collaboration of industry experts and the external expertise of Dr Paul Litchfield CBE.

Broadcasters have liaised with union representatives and the Health and Safety Executive and worked with First Option safety consultants to the media and entertainment industry.

A mid-March morning. Outside the boardroom window there’s rain and a howling wind. Lights flicker briefly as the meeting of STV News managers gets started. We’re not socially distanced – not yet.

News of the coronavirus has been rising in everyone’s consciousness, even though the outbreak still seems far away. The situation is serious in Italy, and the news from Spain is also grim. Scots consider unrestricted access to Spanish islands their vacation birthright. Things are closing in.

Audiences flock to the BBC during moments of national importance. That’s the received wisdom, anyway. Think World Cup finals, the Queen’s Speech or big news days. After a career in commercial TV, I’d become resigned to this. Until I moved to Scotland, that is.

It’s different here. Partly, that’s because Scots watch more TV than anyone else in the UK, an average of 25 more minutes per day last year, to be precise (thanks for asking).

They included Sedona May Tubbs and Kieran Howe, who were part of the team from the Royal Conservatoire Scotland who won the Drama category with their film What Separates Us From the Beast.

Sedona said, “any students thinking about submitting their work should not be afraid and just submit and keep submitting”.

A similar message was echoed by Marco Di Gioia from the University of Stirling’s team that produced the Factual category winner, The Bad Guy.

Cosgrove, who led the Scotland team that campaigned successfully to bring one of the Channel 4 hubs to Glasgow, is the latest recipient of the prestigious RTS Scotland Award.

The inaugural Writer award went to Lorna Martin, who adapted her best-selling book, Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, for television. Women on the Verge, a Merman/House Productions series, aired on UKTV channel W and RTÉ2.

I was sweltering in the heat of a classroom inside the fortress that serves as the headquarters of Vietnam’s state news broadcaster when my phone vibrated with a call from Scotland. I’d been flirting with STV News regarding a move for a few months.

Aside from my translator, none of the 20 journalists I was teaching (digital skills for broadcast journalists, since you ask) could speak English. I didn’t have to step out of the room when I fibbed and said, of course, it would be easy for me to visit Glasgow in a few days’ time for an interview for the head of news job.

ENTRY DEADLINE NOW EXTENDED TO 31 OCTOBER 2018

On Wednesday 3^rd October Simon Pitts, STV CEO announced his company’s sponsorship of the RTS Scotland Student Television Awards and said: “We are big fans of the RTS awards here at STV and want to work with the best emerging talent in Scotland.”