Television Magazine

Fifty years ago, the BBC almost made a big mistake – one that would have changed the course of broadcasting history. After trying out a new recruit, head of television talks Mary Adams decided that her discovery had much to recommend him but, frankly, lacked the bland good looks considered necessary for the presenter’s art.

“David Attenborough is intelligent and promising and may well be producer material, but he is not to be used again as an interviewer. His teeth are too big,” ordered Adams.

This month, Owen Evans celebrates three years as Chief Executive of S4C.

It’s been “a very busy time”, says Evans, pointing to a move to a new Carmarthen HQ, a deal with the BBC to broadcast from the corporation’s new Central Square base in Cardiff and improved digital services.

The past six months have been a period like no other in Ireland. Our lockdown has been followed by a partial lifting of restrictions that has us bobbing up and down between level two and level three of the pandemic regulations.

The good news is that production has resumed, and it is slightly surreal that Matt Damon, star of Contagion, a spooky thriller about a deadly virus and a global panic, has been spotted pottering about in Dalkey, a small seaside town south of Dublin, where he chose to spend lockdown.

On 12 March, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta tested positive for coronavirus, sending his team and staff into self-isolation. The following morning, the Premier League threw in the towel – it was obvious that it was no longer possible to play football during the Covid-19 epidemic.

The rest of football and pretty much all sport followed. At a stroke, the schedules of the UK’s specialist sports broadcasters had been emptied.

Fremantle’s EVP head of EMEA distribution recently brokered deals for the upcoming BBC Three drama We Are Who We Are and BBC Two documentary series Enslaved: The Lost History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

What does the job involve?

In its simplest form, distributors sell the international rights for programmes. Channels and platforms around the world cannot produce all their own shows, so they need to acquire content.

Has the job changed over time?

Something I have noticed about the Covid world is that everyone keeps using the phrase, “Time is meaningless”. January feels like a distant memory but, equally, I’m not sure how we reached October so fast. The amount of news we are having to absorb and then adapt to is unprece­dented – and it shows no signs of letting up.

It is hard to think of another great BBC sitcom blessed by such a strong pedigree as that of Blackadder. Running over four series, spanning 1983 to 1989 – plus the occasional special – the creators and stars of this comic masterpiece read like a roll call of late-20th-century British screen talent.

He has topped an illustrious career in news, chat and daytime shows, not to mention his stint on North Norfolk Digital Radio, with the conquest of a new broadcasting bastion: the podcast.

What he once assumed was the domain of “pale, tech-obsessed social lepers who couldn’t get a platform on any meaningful broadcaster” has become his creative audio kingdom.

It was a remarkable moment in British TV, when two men skated on to the ice to perform together in a prime-time show. Hearts melted across the nation, from the Dancing on Ice studio to millions watching at home.

When Famalam came to our screens in 2018, British television was ready and waiting for a high-profile comedic exploration of the contemporary black British experience. It tapped the same vein as Michaela Coel’s Chewing Gum and the 1990s ensemble show The Real McCoy – and another hit sketch show was long overdue.