September 2018

Literary cravings VENUE: BUSINESS DESIGN CENTRE, LONDON N1 0QH

RTS.org.uk/careersfair2019 #RTScareers Journal of The Royal Television Society September 2018 l Volume 55/8

From the CEO Several of the articles valuable insight into what is a very such an impact earlier this year with in this bumper issue dynamic part of the content sector. the hilarious Derry Girls. of Television embrace The third piece with a literary The highlight of the busy RTS literary themes. Centre theme is Mark Lawson’s profile of ­autumn programme is our London stage is Andrew Billen’s Mike Bartlett, who is equally at home Conference, “Is bigger better?”. I hope brilliant interview with writing for TV and stage. He is, of that many of you can join us: we have Simon Cornwell, course, the screenwriter behind Doctor assembled an extraordinary line-up whose company, The Ink Factory, was Foster and the RTS-nominated King of international speakers. Bob Bakish, the driving force behind the seminal Charles III. His latest show, Press, is a Chief Executive and President of the series The Night Manager. Simon’s latest workplace drama set in the world of global content business Viacom, will John le Carré adaptation is The Little journalism. The series is bound to be deliver the international keynote. Drummer Girl – a show that I am greatly one of the highlights of BBC One’s Don’t miss the interview in this issue looking forward to watching. autumn schedule. of Television in which Bob assesses the Staying with our literary theme, Without gifted writers such as Mike, state of our industry. don’t miss Simon Shaps’s perceptive we wouldn’t have the rich content analysis of why so many of today’s TV diet that we enjoy daily here in the dramas are based on books, how UK and in other dynamic television ­drama is raiding the bookshelves for markets. But writers need commis- adaptation ideas – and why the pro- sioners. We have one of the first inter- cess of getting from page to screen is views with Channel 4’s head of com- sometimes so painful. This provides a edy, Fiona McDermott. Fiona made Theresa Wise Contents Dorothy Byrne’s TV Diary Our Friend on the Isle of Man Dorothy Byrne meets Britain’s oldest transgender woman Michael Wilson is fast discovering there is more 7 and praises the new generation of men who work in TV 23 to the island than TT races and stunning scenery The golden age of adaptation The case for collaboration From Patrick Melrose to Vanity Fair, TV series UK broadcasters are against pooling TV ad sales, 8 based on books are driving the drama boom. 24 but there are other ways to co-operate, explains Simon Shaps investigates Gideon Spanier Press to play Doing comedy differently Mark Lawson talks to TV and stage writer Mike Bartlett Fiona McDermott, C4’s head of comedy, tells 11 as his latest drama, Press, hits the screen 26 Pippa Shawley that she is determined to build on the success of Derry Girls Viacom’s transformation man Steve Clarke interviews Viacom CEO and President Local shows for local people 14 Bob Bakish ahead of his RTS conference keynote As competition bites, HBO Europe is ramping up original 28 production across the continent, reports Stuart Kemp A global shift to home-grown Kate Bulkley explains why Netflix and other What Chinese viewers want 18 streaming services want to park their tanks on Marcus Ryder offers some advice to British producers the lawns of national TV networks 30 worried by the complexities of appealing to Chinese audiences The secret agent’s son Andrew Billen meets Simon Cornwell, whose production 20 company, The Ink Factory, is best known for adapting the novels of his father, John le Carré Cover: Gordon Jamieson

Editor Production, design, advertising Royal Television Society Subscription rates Printing Legal notice Steve Clarke Gordon Jamieson 3 Dorset Rise UK £115 ISSN 0308-454X © Royal Television Society 2018. [email protected] [email protected] London EC4Y 8EN Overseas (surface) £146.11 Printer: FE Burman The views expressed in Television News editor and writer Sub-editor T: 020 7822 2810 Overseas (airmail) £172.22 20 Crimscott Street are not necessarily those of the RTS. Matthew Bell Sarah Bancroft E: [email protected] Enquiries: [email protected] London SE1 5TP Registered Charity 313 728 [email protected] [email protected] W: www.rts.org.uk

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2018 3 RTS CRAFT & DESIGN AWARDS 2018

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STEVE HEWLETT MEMORIAL EAST SCOTLAND National events LECTURE 2018 Thursday 20 September ■ Jane Muirhead Thursday 11 October TV quiz night ■ [email protected] RTS CONFERENCE Charlotte Moore, Director of Quizmaster: BBC Inside Out’s Tuesday 18 September Content, BBC. David Whiteley. Please email SOUTHERN RTS London Conference 2018: Joint RTS and Media Society [email protected] for an entry Wednesday 17 October Is bigger better? Will ‘the event. Tickets £10. All net profits form. Tickets: £10 per team of IBC 2018 review consolidation game’ help tip the will go to the Steve Hewlett Bur- four or five. Panel discussion with Q&A. Joint scales against the tech giants? sary Fund. 6:30pm for 7:00pm Venue: The Lamb Inn, Lamb Yard, event with RTS Thames Valley. Sponsored by Viacom. Venue: The University of Orford Place, Norwich NR1 3RU 7:00pm for 7:30pm Co-chaired by David Lynn, Westminster, 4-12 Little Titchfield ■ Nikki O’Donnell Venue: QMC Television Studio, President Viacom International Street, London W1W 7BY ■ nikki.odonnell@bbc.co.uk Cliddesden Road, Basingstoke Media Networks (VIMN), and RG21 3HF James Currell, President, VIMN, RTS EARLY EVENING EVENT LONDON ■ Stephanie Farmer UK, Northern and Eastern Wednesday 24 October ■ Daniel Cherowbrier ■ [email protected] Europe. Confirmed speakers Who’s watching? The challenge ■ [email protected] include: David Abraham, CEO, of digital TV measurement THAMES VALLEY Wonderhood Studios; Bob Speakers: Rich Astley, chief MIDLANDS Wednesday 17 October Bakish, CEO and President, product officer, Finecast; Tuesday 16 October IBC 2018 review Viacom; Zai Bennett, director of Matt Hill, research and planning RTS Midlands careers fair Panel discussion with Q&A. programmes, Sky Entertainment director, Thinkbox; John Litster, 10:00am-5:00pm. Tickets: £10, Joint event with RTS Southern. UK and Ireland; Karen Blackett MD, Sky Media; Sarah Rose, with 300 early-bird tickets at 7:00pm for 7:30pm OBE, UK country manager, director of consumer insight, £6. Group bookings available via Venue: QMC Television Studio, WPP and Chair, MediaCom Channel 4; and Justin Sampson, [email protected] Cliddesden Road, Basingstoke UK; Georgia Brown, director, CEO, Barb. Chair: Kate Bulkley, Venue: Edgbaston Stadium, RG21 3HF European originals, Amazon journalist. 6:30pm for 6:45pm Edgbaston Road, Birmingham Studios; Kate Bulkley, media Venue: The Hospital Club, 24 Endell B5 7QU Friday 23 November commentator and journalist; Street, London WC2H 9HQ 2018 Winter Ball Damian Collins MP; Tony Hall, Tuesday 20 November 7:00pm till late Director-General, BBC; Tim RTS MASTERCLASSES RTS Midlands Awards 2018 Venue: De Vere Wokefield Estate, Hincks, Co-CEO, Expectation Tuesday 13 Novermber Venue: Town Hall, Victoria Goodboys Lane, Reading RG7 3AE Entertainment; Ian Katz, director RTS Student Programme Square, Birmingham B3 3DQ ■ Tony Orme of programmes, Channel 4; Masterclasses ■ Jayne Greene 07792 776585 ■ [email protected] Carolyn McCall, CEO, ITV; and ■ [email protected] Mark McLane, global head of Wednesday 14 Novermber WALES diversity and inclusion, Barclays; RTS Craft Skills Masterclasses NORTH EAST AND THE BORDER Wednesday 5 September Alex Mahon, CEO, Channel 4; Venue: IET London, 2 Savoy ■ Jill Graham Is CGI the next big win for Anne Nguyen, partner and Place, London WC2R 0BL ■ [email protected] drones? managing director, London, Michael Surcombe, founder, Boston Consulting Group; RTS AWARDS NORTH WEST Leaping Wing. 6:30pm Trevor Phillips OBE, Founder, Monday 26 November Saturday 10 November Venue: BBC Wales Club, Webber Phillips; Matthew RTS Craft & Design Awards 2018 RTS North West Awards 2018 Llantrisant Road, Llandaff, Cardiff Postgate, chief technology London Hilton on Park Lane Venue: Hilton Deansgate, 303 CF5 2YQ and product officer, BBC; Beth 22 Park Lane, London W1K 1BE Deansgate, Manchester M3 4LQ ■ Hywel Wiliam 07980 007841 Rigby, political correspondent, ■ Rachel Pinkney 07966 230639 ■ [email protected] Sky News; Kate Russell, RTS FUTURES ■ [email protected] technology reporter, BBC Click; Wednesday 30 January, 2019 WEST OF ENGLAND Darren Throop, President and Careers Fair 2019 NORTHERN IRELAND ■ Belinda Biggam CEO, Entertainment One; Jane Venue: Business Design Centre, Thursday 15 November ■ [email protected] Turton, CEO, All3Media; Stephen 52 Upper Street, London N1 0QH RTS NI Programme Awards van Rooyen, CEO, Sky UK & Venue: TBC YORKSHIRE ROI; Kirsty Wark, writer and ■ John Mitchell ■ Lisa Holdsworth 07790 145280 broadcaster; Sharon White, Local events ■ mitch.mvbroadcast@ ■ lisa@allonewordproductions. CEO, Ofcom; Deborah Williams, btinternet.com co.uk executive director, Creative DEVON AND CORNWALL Diversity Network. ■ Jane Hudson REPUBLIC OF IRELAND Venue: Kings Place, 90 York Way, ■ RTSDevonandCornwall@rts. ■ Charles Byrne (353) 87251 3092 London N1 9AG org.uk ■ [email protected]

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2018 5 RTS Masterclasses 13-14 November n RTS Student Programme Masterclasses: 13 November n RTS Craft Skills Masterclasses: 14 November Venue: IET London WC2R 0BL

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Dorothy Byrne meets Britain’s oldest transgender woman and praises the new generation of men who work in TV

V current affairs and editorial director. I assume at first that regret that it didn’t inspire me to do documentaries are he is in charge of everything, but it anything at all. obsessed with the turns out there are other people even new. That means we more in charge than he is. Hard for an ■ Meanwhile, comments are pouring can ignore problems outsider to comprehend. But what we in about Kate Quilton’s film Breast- which continue over do all know is that the more people feeding Uncovered, which showed how decades. My month there are in charge of making pro- uncomfortable young women can be begins with watching Channel 5’s grammes, the better they are. made to feel feeding their children Raped:T My Story for a panel I’m on. in public. It’s a really daring programme pre- ■ Sometimes, a job like mine means So many women felt she spoke for cisely because there is nothing new that you have to give up on excit- them. It demonstrates that, for journal- in it; it is a devastating document of ing experiences. I’m due to go to an ism to have an effect, it doesn’t always the way rape ruins lives and survivors event in Parliament where I would have to be a long-term­ investigation. are denied justice. And that’s a story listen to lots of MPs talking at length. we need to tell again and again. But, sadly, I am too busy to attend. I ■ And finally, a conversation in the At the same time, we are finalising bear it bravely. office about men. It’s clear to me a Dispatches, The UN Sex Abuse Scandal, that if you are a decent man, you another programme that could have ■ An event I am able to turn up to is must feel somewhat under siege been broadcast at any time over the an auction to raise funds for the won- when you open the papers every day past several decades. As it happens, derful Hospice Biographers, set up by and turn on the news to see your the first film I ever produced and my old Granada colleague Barbara gender exposed yet again. directed when I worked on World in Altounyan. The idea is that trained I have to say that the young men I Action was about marital rape. volunteers (who might be journalists work with now behave so much One of my male colleagues at the or anyone with a professional ‘listen- better than some of the men I time commented, “That’s not a story.” ing’ background record the life stories worked with in television in the past. “You’re right,” I replied. “It’s not a of people in their last days. I realise that I am older and in a story, it’s a national scandal.” One can just picture how much senior position – and I did attend a those stories would mean in future to, Bafta event some time ago in which ■ Big news at BBC News. I don’t for example, the children of a young young women told some horror sto- refer to the Cliff Richard case, which woman who died. The auctioneer is ries. But I genuinely think men have has worrying potential implications Britain’s oldest transgender woman, improved. for all of us – there are times when who changed sex at the age of 81. At the very least, they keep their it is vital to name police suspects. Apparently, it was having a knee trousers zipped up in the office, No, the news that catches my eye is replacement that gave her the idea which is a definite improvement. that there’s a restructure and several that she could dare to become the new job titles have been created. woman she had always felt herself to Dorothy Byrne is Channel 4’s head of I see one person has been appointed be. I have had a knee replacement. I news and current affairs.

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2018 7 The golden age of adaptation

You have to remember what a partisan of the novel I am… and that it had long been one of my ambitions to have my novels defeat all attempts to put them on screen

Interview with Jonathan Franzen, ‘ New York Times, 26 June 2018

he best-selling Ameri- From Big Little Lies to Patrick Melrose, can novelist Jonathan Drama The Handmaid’s Tale to American Gods, Franzen is, as it turns more and’ more of the most critically out, no enemy of televi- acclaimed, talked-about TV is based on sion. In 2001, having From Patrick Melrose books. Novels dominate, but there is a initially criticised Oprah to Vanity Fair, TV series growing appetite for non-fiction titles. WinfreyT and her hugely influential TV A recent example is John Preston’s A book club – claiming that she had no based on books are Very English Scandal, the source material literary taste – Franzen accepted her for BBC One’s destined-for-awards selection of his novel The Corrections for driving the drama dramatisation of the Jeremy Thorpe the book club. The Winfrey endorse- boom. Simon Shaps scandal. There are countless other ment was helpful. The Corrections went “based on a true story” productions, on to sell more than 1.5 million copies. investigates many with a strong bias towards crime, And, like many other authors who as well as large doses of epic history. had previously turned their noses up many scripts, the involvement of the And we can add new and powerful at TV, Franzen began to wake up to the normally unstoppable Scott Rudin, and adaptations of the classics: Howard’s strengths of drama series in the era of the attachment of Daniel Craig as lead. End, Vanity Fair (a judgement based at “peak TV”, championing programmes Franzen’s experiences with televi- the time of writing purely on the such as Friday Night Lights, The Killing, sion are by no means unique. For weight of promos in prized slots dur- Orphan Black and Breaking Bad. (I have every John le Carré – with successful ing ITV’s World Cup coverage), The not met a writer, particularly a male BBC adaptations of many of his books Woman in White and Parade’s End. And writer, who isn’t a fan of Breaking Bad.) in the 1970s and, more recently, of The then, as it draws to a close, there is the But then came Franzen’s moment Night Manager – there are many, many mighty, all-conquering Game of Thrones. of truth. What would television do more authors who try and fail to get Statistics on this phenomenon are with his novels, other than simply their books developed for TV. Or, per- hard to come by, but research con- endorse them, so that people could haps worse, fail at the end of a long ducted by K7 Media, the international read them for themselves? and tortuous development process. media consultancy for television, tells The answer seems to be that his And yet we are not merely witnessing a fascinating story. K7 analysed more “ambition”, revealed in his New York a golden age of television drama, we are than 300 new drama series launching Times interview a couple of months witnessing a golden age of adaptation. in the UK and US between Jan 2016 ago, has been fulfilled. To date, his For all the failures, the stalled or seem- and June 2018. novels have, indeed, defeated all ingly interminable development work, In that period, almost one in three attempts to put them on screen. the polite rejections from broadcasters of the shows launched, 31%, were based An HBO adaptation of The Corrections (perhaps citing a policy decision the on books. got to a pilot, but then wasn’t picked pitch has unwittingly breached – “too Dig a little deeper, and significant up. More recently, TV development of much period”, “too many Russians”, “no trends emerge. In 2016, 26% of new his fifth novel, Purity, set up at Show- more dystopia for the time being”), series in the UK and US were based on time, seems to have stalled, despite adaptations are delivering. books; in the first half of 2018, that

8 Vanity Fair ITV number had risen to 36%, with 42% of dystopian work dedicated to Margaret rising number of adaptations. Books new US series based on books. Atwood. Eleven UK production com- are a treasure house of material for a One more number to note: last year, panies bid for the book, with the rights TV writer: they supply plot and char- more than half, 52%, of new SVoD won by Jane Featherstone’s Sister acter, tone of voice and world, and, scripted series were based on books. Pictures. usefully, dialogue. Moreover, those figures do not include While television has some way to go A writer once told me that, having the many series based on articles, to match the $5m paid recently for the been hired to adapt a book only to be particularly long-form journalism, film rights to David Grann’s Killers of the replaced by another writer, the few that often form the basis of a book Flower Moon, sums paid by television words of dialogue to make it to screen the author is in the process of writing. companies for options are rising: from his version of the script were The K7 numbers, of course, repre- £50,000 to £60,000 for an 18-month lifted verbatim from the novel. He was sent a rising percentage of a larger pie: option is not unknown. still paid handsomely for his efforts. the number of drama series launching Given that the average published Given a choice between a blank page each year has been growing across all author earns less than the minimum or a book to build on, the book often platforms in both US and UK markets. wage, these sums matter to them. They wins out. Small wonder, then, that the demand also open up the prospect of really So, the doyen of adaptations, Andrew for “hot” new titles among producers is life-changing sums if the book makes Davies, can move at what feels like greater than ever. Last year, UK televi- it to screen, particularly if it becomes a lightning speed, particularly for a man sion experienced a bidding war for the long-running series. in his eighties, from War and Peace to rights to Naomi Alderman’s The Power, a There is a simple explanation for the John Updike’s Rabbit novels, taking a �

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2018 9 American Gods Amazon Prime

� quick detour to adapt Jane Austen’s For that, Benedict Cumberbatch unfinishedSanditon . LAST YEAR, deserves enormous credit. Critically, these are authors and MORE THAN There are no reliable figures on the titles that broadcasters can sell to ratio between books optioned – audiences. With the almost infinite HALF OF NEW which generally give a producer at viewing choices that audiences now SVoD SCRIPTED least 18 months’ exclusivity to have, these are titles that – to use the develop the material for television vogue phrase – “cut through”. SERIES WERE – and series produced. To service this demand, increasing BASED ON My guess is that authors stand no numbers of UK producers now better than a one in 10 chance of their employ specialist book scouts, many BOOKS work ending up on screen, once it has with experience of working in pub- been optioned. lishing, to try and identify suitable So there is something in Franzen’s titles, often pre-publication. be a tricky business. Novels, not just caution, and his desire to protect the Among the platforms, Netflix has literary fiction, are brilliant at captur- magic of the written word. gone one step further, employing the ing the interior life of characters, with It just happens to be the case that respected literary scouting agency, plot sometimes secondary to that we are now living in an era of insatia- Maria B Campbell Associates, to buy mission – but TV consumes story. ble demand for material, for the stories books direct, rather than wait for Sky’s Patrick Melrose may be the most gifted authors tell. n producers to knock on their door extreme example in many years of a with a stack of acquired titles under TV series that succeeded, despite the Simon Shaps is the founder of Simon their arms. novels’ limited plot and the notorious Shaps Ltd. He also works as a TV and And yet, despite all of this, as Jona- difficulty of making addictive behav- film consultant for the literary agency than Franzen suggests, adaptation can iour and mental collapse watchable. Georgina Capel Associates.

10 Ben Chaplin and Charlotte Riley in Press BBC Press to play

heatre playwrights and modern entertainments. Over the TV screenwriters tend Screenwriting past decade, two major plays at the to be different animals National Theatre (Earthquakes in Lon- who spend most of don and 13) and a couple at the their time in one cage. Mark Lawson talks to Almeida (King Charles III and Albion) Sir David Hare occa- TV and stage writer have alternated with four original sionallyT takes a break between series for TV: The Town, Doctor Foster, National Theatre commissions to write Mike Bartlett as his Trauma and, from the first week of a TV series, such as BBC Two’s recent September, Press, a six-part BBC One Collateral, and Dennis Potter did a sin- latest drama, Press, series about newspaper journalists in gle theatre play, Sufficient Carbohydrate, hits the screen a time when their industry is strug- but these were recognisably excur- gling to find money and trust. sions from their main creative space. Confirming the success of Bartlett’s One of the striking things about multiskilling, King Charles III, a mock-­ Mike Bartlett is that the 37-year-old Shakespearean fantasy about the writer moves smoothly and fre- coronation of the current Prince of quently between the ancient and Wales, secured an Olivier award �

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2018 11 � and a Tony nomination in its theatre version and an RTS nomination for its TV adaptation. “The more I do, I come to realise how different TV and theatre are,” says Bart- lett. “Far beyond the obvious things, such as the visual being more signifi- cant on screen. You don’t get rehearsals in television, really. So, if, from theatre, you’re used to finding and honing the script through five weeks in a rehearsal room, you really have to adjust. “The other thing I really notice is the different rhythm of it. In TV, if you’re involved as an executive producer, a show can be a full-time job for two years. Whereas, in theatre, you have the moment of writing it and then the moment of it going on, but [you] do all this other stuff in between those two bursts of energy.” The largest adjustment, though, is in the definition of a script. It would be normal for a theatre director and writer to discuss the style, tone or length of their next piece – but in TV these cal- culations are often preordained by slot or genre. Rupert Goold, who directed King Doctor Foster Charles III on both screen and stage, as well as several other Bartlett stage plays, thinks that the dramatist had to drummer in a band and he has often He remembers originally pitching learn how to negotiate the expecta- said to me that he tends to think of Press, long before Doctor Foster, to various tions of commissioners and viewers. “I writing in eight- to 12-line sections, broadcasters, as “a ‘story of the week’ think he felt with The Town, which was rather than a single line, scene or act. show, in which a gang of journalists not a ratings success, that – for various He hears the music of a script.” would deal with a politics story one reasons – it hadn’t quite worked out as While Bartlett’s compositions for TV, week, then a sports or showbiz one the he hoped,” says Goold. “So he was so far, look very different superficially, next. It would be a bit West Wing-ish. wary of TV at that point. one uniting factor is that, regardless of “But I was told that viewers weren’t “But he watches everything on TV and what direction the shows go in or the interested in media stories. Then, with he learns how to make it work for him. I phone-hacking and the Leveson report, think he’s fallen in love with TV: with its everyone got much more interested in reach and its ability to communicate.” ‘I THINK HE HAS journalism again. And, at the same time, Goold suggests that Bartlett’s drive to the industry – post-digital – was going get things right is central to his success FALLEN IN LOVE through, if not a collapse, then at least a in both forms. In the theatre rehearsal WITH TV’ revolution. And then the whole ‘fake room, dramatists are king, whereas, on news’ debate started. a TV production, they are more likely “So, the show became more about to have the rank of the Duke ideas they deal with, there tends to be those issues, although using the frame- of Bognor. a particular job at the heart of the work of a workplace drama in which There are stories of theatre writers action: medic (Doctor Foster, Trauma), you, hopefully, fall in love with the being shocked by the number of hands heir to the throne (King Charles III) and, characters.” on a TV script, but Goold says that now, journalist (Press). Press moves between the Herald, a would never be a problem for Bartlett: This list wins a thoughtful pause from liberal newspaper with a high mind “He works and works and works, Bartlett: “I’d never really thought about and a low circulation, and the Post, a and hits deadlines. So many theatre that. But I’ve always loved TV dramas tabloid where the equation is reversed. writers, the first blast is everything where what characters do for a living Ben Chaplin plays the editor of the – and it’s quite hard to get them to do is crucial to it. I’m thinking of The West Post and Charlotte Riley, a key per- the second, third, fourth, fifth drafts. Wing, The Good Wife and even Breaking former for Bartlett – having been in “But Mike doesn’t have any trouble Bad, where the point is that he moves The Town and played the Duchess of with that.” from one occupation to another. Also, Cambridge in King Charles III – is the The theatre director also has a strik- if you’re telling a long-form story, you news editor of the Herald. (“Mike has ing insight into the writer’s unusual pretty soon have to ask: well, what does always written particularly well for attitude to form: “Mike used to be a this character do in the world?” women,” says Goold.)

12 “No,” he says. “But I think the form that Press plays with is the TV work- place drama: The West Wing, Ally McBeal, The Good Wife. It plays with that, but also subverts it. It looks like a ‘story of the week’ show, but I want viewers to be uncertain which of the stories will complete that week or play out over the whole series. Which reflects what it’s like working on a newspaper but also gives a different form to the show.” One of my grandfathers was a County Durham coal miner, and I mention to Bartlett that Press made me reflect on the irony that his grandson had ended up in a profession, journalism, that now feels terminally threatened, as coal mining was in the 1980s. “Yes,” he responds. “But what I’d say – and Press explores – is that we could do without coal, but we can’t do with- out energy. To take that analogy to journalism, we might – might – be able to manage without newspapers, but we can’t manage without news or facts. If we base everything on opinion, civili- sation would collapse quite quickly. We have to find a way of verifying objective truth.” King Charles III

All pictures: BBC Rupert Goold expects much more TV work from Bartlett: “I tease him Both Riley and Chaplin’s characters, important cause – is hugely under- that, when we did King Charles III on though, are given sympathetic and mined by the fact that it flew a heli- stage, he wrote it and left the produc- unsympathetic elements. And, while copter over his house. tion up to me. But, when we did it on red-top tactics are dramatised – such “If you want to stand up for principle, screen, every single costume he had a as the “death knock”, seeking an inter- you have to have principles in your view on. So, I think he does have that view with grievously bereaved parents daily work. American-style ‘showrunner’ in him. – the upmarket publication is also “But I’d also like the viewers to think He likes to be over it all.” indicted for hypocrisies, including, for about their own professions: when you Bartlett seems to confirm that view: example, putting salacious images go to work, how principled are you, “In Press, in the Post’s office, in the online under the pretext of “debating corner, there’s a cartoonist and they the morality” of them. designed an office decorated with “Yes. That was always important,” ‘HE HEARS cartoons from across his whole career. says Bartlett. “The series presents the And I was devastated that I hadn’t writ- two approaches to the news – in THE MUSIC ten any of that into the show. I could shorthand, broadsheet-serious and OF A SCRIPT’ have done a whole episode about the tabloid-populist – but, on any given cartoonist!” day, one style may get closer to the Press has the potential to run to more truth than the other. And it’s really and, if you’re not, what are the conse- series, but that will depend on ratings important to present those approaches quences for your industry?” and, appropriately, press. BBC One and without pre-existing prejudices. It’s on Rupert Goold confirms the writer’s its viewers might also like a third the BBC, written by a playwright who careful open-mindedness: “I think his series of Doctor Foster, with Suranne has previously shown leftist tenden- greatest gift is that he writes with Jones as the media-friendly GP. cies, but I don’t want to appeal only to enormous compassion towards all But Bartlett says: “There’s nothing people who read the Guardian. And I sides. He’s a very political man, and happening at the moment. Suranne is hope it doesn’t.” a moralist. But, in King Charles III, he super-busy. And I’ve got other things Commendably, Bartlett even suggests wanted to present the monarchist coming up. that there may be messages in Press for voice, and, in our stage play Albion, “I think, in all our minds, there’s no the broadcaster that is screening it. He the Brexiteer voice, even though those hurry: there has to be the right time thinks that “a really good example” of aren’t his own positions.” and the right storyline. the current media crisis of credibility So, with Press, did Bartlett study previ- “The second series took two years. “is the BBC thing with Cliff Richard. ous fictions about journalists, such as the We’ve never wanted to make it for the The BBC’s ability to stand up for the movie The Front Page or David Hare and sake of making it. So we’ll have to wait freedom of the press – which is an Howard Brenton’s stage play Pravda? and see.” n

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2018 13 n a media world hit by both consolidation and fragmenta- tion, flagship brands are daily demonstrating their value. And they are central to the strategy of Bob Bakish, CEO and Presi- dent of global entertainment power- houseI Viacom, who has occupied the hot seat since December 2016. Names such as Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon are more cru- cial than ever to Viacom’s US and global success in a crowded and fluid media market. This applies to content that cuts through using the right distribution channels and platforms, but also to live events and movies (Viacom owns Paramount), where profile fuels popu- larity and revenues. “It’s certainly an interesting time to be in the media,” Bakish reflects in a phone call from the group’s Manhattan HQ. “You can look at it as glass half empty or glass half full. I tend to look at the whole world as half full, because there is opportunity in change.” The former Booz Allen & Hamilton Viacom executive joined Viacom in 1997, rising through various positions, such as Steve Clarke business development and advertising sales. From 2007, he ran Viacom Inter- interviews Viacom national Media Networks and its pre- CEO and President decessor, MTV Networks International. During this period, he more than dou- Bob Bakish bled the division’s revenues. In autumn 2016, the comparatively ahead of his RTS low-key Bakish was appointed Via- conference keynote com’s acting CEO and President. He

had impressed Shari Redstone, Viacom Viacom’s transformati on man

non-executive­ Vice-Chair of the Via- On being appointed to the top job, we were trying to achieve,” he says. com board and the daughter of the Bakish, straight talking and bullish, Step two was to have the right team legendary Sumner Redstone. One of immediately began devising a trans- in place. “We made extensive changes the giants of the US entertainment formation plan. Today, it is reshaping to the Viacom management team,” he business, Redstone bought Viacom in Viacom into a leaner, more focused explains. “The most extreme case was the late 1980s in a hostile takeover. company capable of punching its full Paramount, where I changed the entire Today, Bakish heads a complex weight against traditional competitors senior team.” Viacom’s transformation man company that reaches a cumulative and the digital behemoths. The final – and perhaps hardest 4.3 billion TV subscribers. In the UK, “One of the first things I did when I – step is the task of executing the plan. Argentina and India, Viacom is the took over as Viacom CEO in 2016 was “I am happy to say, sitting here a year owner or co-owner of high-profile TV very quickly work on a plan and then and a half in, that we’ve consistently networks – Channel 5, Telefe and roll it out publicly. People, including moved the ball forward,” says Bakish. Colors, respectively. our employees, needed to know what “We’re not the same company that we

14 were two years ago. We’re in much Viacom’s brands to have what he calls healthier shape. “true, multi-platform expression”, and Pinky Malinky “We have a ways to go. I encourage that the likes of Nickelodeon and MTV you, for example, to watch what hap- are leveraged in more than one space. pens at Paramount during the next “We know that there is tons of year, because you’ll see it once again ­consumption in digital,” he says. “His- be one of the pre-eminent studios in torically, we’ve looked at that as canni- the world.” balistic but, with fragmentation, it’s an He adds: “I think it’s a great time to opportunity to reach people you might be doing it. There’s actually a lot of not otherwise reach.” noise out there. A lot of big companies Six months ago, the company are in a state of chaos because of M&A launched Viacom Digital Studios. Here, or potential M&A, [whereas] we’re just the strategy involves reimagining its playing through, building share, brands for younger audiences, with improving sequentially.” content destined for such platforms as Consistent with the policy of focus- YouTube and Facebook Watch. Titles Bob Bakish ing on maximising the power of Via- announced to date include Cooking in com’s flagship brands, under Bakish’s the Crib with Snooki, a new take on … on the leadership the Paramount brand today MTV’s Cribs franchise, and animated Netflix encompasses a range of activities – in shorts The JoJo & BowBow Show for You- streamers other words, Paramount Pictures, the Tube, featuring Nickelodeon’s JoJo Siwa. world’s oldest film studio, represents “This content is only starting to hit ‘Sure, they’re frenemies, but we do only part of what Paramount does. the screen, and we’ll be building on business with all of them. We’ve Production has been ramped up at this,” notes Bakish. “I am tremen- just announced a deal for a new Paramount Television, as Bakish dously excited about what’s going � animated series that will be shown explains: “Our Paramount television by Netflix, Pinky Malinky, produced production business didn’t exist four by Nickelodeon. years ago. This year, the division will ‘I was with a very large Euro- generate more than $400m in revenue. pean distributor two weeks ago. It is profitable and it is The conversation was about: ‘We producing hits.” These have channels on this platform. include 13 Reasons Why, We have on-demand on this plat- made for Netflix, and The Alien- form.’ They’re looking to have more ist, made for TNT in the US. original content as they focus on On 4 July, Paramount Network, having a cornerstone position in a free-to-air service featuring their country. drama, comedy and movies, was ‘To them, Netflix is a frenemy, launched in the UK, following its too. On the one hand, they get US debut in January. The move was some revenue, on the other, they described as “a critical milestone” by don’t want people just going to [the streamer]. That, in turn, led to a conversation about partnering on more original content that they could have, in this case, for an exclusive first window. Viacom’s transformati on man ‘Yeah, the world is a complicated place where, historically, customers are competitors, and people who London-based Jill Offman, executive Nickelodeon weren’t in the business are now in vice-president of Comedy Central and star JoJo Siwa the business. Paramount Network International. ‘But, as I watch other companies With Viacom operating 20-plus TV vertically integrate… AT&T, Time network brands in the US, Bakish Warner, and we’ll see what hap- highlights the importance of focusing pens with Fox… there’s actually an on the flagship brands. “In the US, they incredible opportunity for Viacom are Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Cen- to do what it does best, which is to tral, BET and Paramount,” he says. “We create great content and partner were too fragmented in the US... we with others. That is exactly what needed to concentrate our resources we’re focused on. I think that is a on a subset of those brands.” good hand to play.’

He believes that it is essential for Nickelodeon

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2018 15 � on there.” Last month, Viacom con- firmed that it had bought Awesome- ness TV, further evidence of the firm’s determination to position itself as a leading digital publisher for younger audiences, competing with the likes of Vice and Buzzfeed. However, reinventing even a world-­ conquering brand such as MTV in today’s choice-saturated environment presents challenges. The CEO acknow­ ledges that, in the past, mistakes were made regarding MTV’s US strategy. “In the US, MTV went down a scripted path and saw ratings degrada- tion and some real loss of uniqueness. You’ve got to focus on what the brand represents and what your position is. “Outside the US, when I was running International – and still today – we were committed to a unique brand position that combined music with heavy reality, unscripted shows. We grew share under that strategy.” A shift in policy in America with MTV returning to reality shows is paying off. “We’re now in the fifth straight quarter of ratings growth,” says Bakish. “We’re doing a lot of work, day in and day out, with MTV in the digital native space.” He cites the example of reviving the Total Request Live (TRL) franchise and introducing a segment entitled TRLeva- tor, in which the Backstreet Boys get The Alienist into a lift alongside MTV staff and proceed to sing to the amazed workers Carpool Karaoke-style. The clip has been years. Nowadays, their popularity is era. Perry is producing 90 episodes of a massive hit on YouTube. driven by social media. The biggest drama and comedy series per year for “When we brought back TRL, we MTV events are the MTV Video Music BET and other Viacom networks. The quickly found that consumption was far Awards, held last month in New York, company also secured exclusive distri- stronger online than on TV,” says Bakish, and the MTV Europe Awards, to be bution rights to Perry’s short-form adding: “That way, we’re able to attract, staged in Bilbao this November. video content and Paramount Pictures retain and, ultimately, monetise today’s Says Bakish: “Those are top-of-the- gained first-look rights to his feature-­ youth, who like to consume content pyramid events. They showcase what film ideas. that way.” MTV is all about in music and pop “The deal with Tyler Perry came out This is all well and good, he suggests, culture. They’re supported by teams, of a conversation that led to me getting but “in this digitally interconnected research and investment. Strictly on a plane, flying down and meeting world, there is no substitute for the real speaking, it’s not about doing it in the him. That, ultimately, led to Tyler sign- thing. That’s where our events fran- same old way but it’s always about ing to join Viacom instead of Lions- chises come in.” As the music business being true to the brand and the fan.” gate.” Bakish recalls. learnt the hard way, live performances He adds: “Year-to-year attendance at This aside, competition is unlikely to long ago surpassed record sales in Viacom events is doubling to about ease up, especially as Apple joins Net­ terms of their ability to generate reve- 2 million people.” flix and Amazon in the high-end con- nue. Historically, Nickelodeon and MTV Ultimately, though, Viacom remains tent space. have been big players in live events. a content company at heart. Famously, Does Viacom have anything to learn Nickelodeon’s SlimeFest made its it was Sumner Redstone who coined from these companies? “I think the debut in the US in June, having previ- the phrase, subsequently adopted as an most important thing you can do in life ously staged sell-out shows in South entertainment business mantra, “Con- is to continue to learn,” says Bakish. Africa, Australia, Italy, the UK and Spain. tent is king”. “You can learn from all over the place. SlimeFest UK, a partnership with Live In this context, Viacom’s signing of If you look at what happened with TV Nation, will take place in the Arena at Tyler Perry, the African-American Everywhere, it was a significantly Blackpool Pleasure Beach in October. writer, director, producer, playwright missed opportunity. MTV’s international events have and actor, in July last year may turn out “An inferior product was created helped reinforce the brand for many to represent a landmark for the Bakish because the partners in the ecosystem

16 Jane McDonald & Friends Channel 5 Bob Bakish… on the UK’s Channel 5

‘Channel 5 is a fundamental part of our happened. All we have to do is play international strategy. Actually, when through. The good news is that it is not we acquired it almost four years ago, going to affect Viacom’s commitment we saw a tremendous opportunity in to the UK and London. We have a tre- combining our pay-network position in mendous team there and they’re doing the UK with a general entertainment, great work. WE CONTINUE free-to-air position in the UK. ‘We have valuable media assets in ‘From a commercial standpoint, we London. That is not going to change. TO BE ON THE believed there would be synergies – in ‘In the short term, and we’ve seen LOOKOUT FOR advertising sales, content creation, this to date and, unfortunately, we will cross promotion – and so drive larger continue to see this for a little while, ACQUISITIONS audiences for the combined company. Brexit is affecting our commercial abili- IN THE UK ‘We believed, frankly, that it would ties and monetisation [in the UK]. create opportunity for our employees. ‘Brexit has not been a positive for

Netflix And all that together would drive growth. the UK ad market. That costs us some That’s exactly what happened. We con- money. I am not happy about that. But – the distributors and the program- tinue to be very pleased with Channel 5, we’re in it for the long haul. Through mers – basically fought each other to even though one thing that we didn’t this period, we have chosen to increase get the best economic outcome for predict when we bought it was Brexit. our investment, even though revenue themselves. This allowed a new ‘We can’t control the fact that Brexit hasn’t been what we had hoped.’ entrant to come in on an OTT basis and create the product we should have had. It attracted triple-digit millions of subscribers and created a market cap …on potential UK acquisitions that dwarfs the traditional guys. “The lesson there is that, [while] I ‘We’re always looking for something ‘We continue to be on the lookout don’t think you can do everything, interesting that fits in and is likely to for acquisitions in the UK. I can’t tell you’ve got to see how to work with accelerate our strategy. [Such deals] you for sure if there’s going to be people and you’ve got to do it pretty are hard to find and hard to get done. anything in the UK, because we look quickly and unlock opportunities. Unfortunately, most deals don’t get done. broadly.’ “If you don’t, someone else will show up. I don’t know if that’s purely a lesson from the digital guys. The digital guys are able to exploit that a lot …on the drama boom because of their capital structures. “At the moment, they have immense ‘Viacom is, at core, a content company, never been more access to content. resources that they can throw at some- so it’s a good thing. Excluding 13 Reasons Companies – whether… their core thing if they choose to. Why, The Alienist and Tom Clancy’s Jack [activity is entertainment], or they are “That teaches you to be focused and Ryan for Amazon, we have 22 other new entrants looking to drive their not to hang around.… Watching them, scripted shows set up with networks. businesses using entertainment… to seeing what they are able to create and ‘There’s no doubt that some of pull people into the funnel – are buying how they use data, targeting and those will convert to orders. Why is product. I think that’s going to last for measurability, you have to replicate that happening? It’s because there has a while.’ some of that. So, there are lessons.” n

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2018 17 Video streaming Kate Bulkley explains A global shift to why Netflix and other streaming services want to park their tanks home-grown on the lawns of national TV networks

he old saying “Think global, act local” is the new mantra for the Netflix-led,­ global tech platforms as theyT push for ever greater numbers of subscribers. In recent months, Netflix,­ Apple and Amazon have all started to open offices, staffed largely by locally grown TV commissioners, in the UK and other non-US markets. Simultaneously, the tech platforms are ramping up local marketing efforts. Amazon has also jumped into local sports markets, purchasing major live sports rights for the UK, including a Premier League football package and US Open tennis rights. In June, YouTube launched its sub- scription video service, YouTube Pre- mium, in the UK and staffed up a local commissioning office. The message is clear: the tech giants are taking the next steps in what some characterise as Silicon Valley’s assault on broadcasters and local creative Netflix industries around the world. Indeed, international markets if Netflix is to emphasised the importance of com- BBC Director-General Tony Hall has continue on its fairly relentless growth missioning shows that “are incredibly called the onslaught of the big SVoD trajectory. To support that, it can sell US relevant in their home territories – and services a “fight for the future” for PSB content into those markets; but, to reach the nice windfall is they get viewed all and commercial broadcasters alike. maximum potential, Netflix needs con- over the world”. Traditionally, the BBC and similar tent that appeals to local preferences.” He highlighted such localised shows networks have presented their ability Netflix is expected to pour $8bn into as the Danish series The Rain and Ger- to commission and screen local con- original content this year, much of it man drama Dark, plus the forthcoming tent as a core strength. Who else can directed towards the UK, Germany and new season of Spain’s Las Chicas del reflect Britain back to itself better than Spain. Two years ago, its portion of Cable and Ghoul from India; Netflix sees the BBC or ITV? original programming coming from the last as a key growth market. The reasons for the shift to local outside the US was just 23%, but this “It’s really, I think, accelerating the were underlined by Netflix’s recent year it is on track to be nearly double, brand perception of Netflix as not just quarterly results. Significantly, the at 45%, according to Ampere Analysis. an out-of-towner, but someone who’s company missed its own, rather con- Half of the non-US originals will hail producing content that you care about servative, subscription targets by a from Europe, particularly the dynamic in every part of the world,” explained telling 1 million – and its share price UK market. This is because Europe has Sarandos. dropped 14% in a single day. the most potential for new subscrip- And it is not just Netflix that is “Domestic growth for Netflix has tion growth. There is good broadband boosting local content and moving slumped in the US, where it already availability, coupled with willingness beyond a focus on commissioning has high penetration,” says Richard and ability to pay for content. scripted, episodic drama. Amazon is Broughton of Ampere Analysis. “The Indeed, in its recent results, Netflix’s heading in the same strategic direction, new growth needs to come from chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, raising non-US original programming

18 box-set rights to broadcasters. Indeed, the recent row between Virgin Media and UKTV, which led to all 10 of its channels disappearing for three weeks during vexed negotiations over box-set rights, was telling. Both Virgin and UKTV’s joint owner, the BBC, need no reminding of the escalating value of certain on-demand rights. The commercial and branding issues may not be easy to sort out, either, but White’s statement that the rise of SVoD has “profound implications for UK television” speaks volumes for what is at stake. In July, she urged broadcasters to “work together to reach people who are turning away from TV” in order to compete in the digital age. The recent talk about reviving what is being described as “Kangaroo 2” is clearly underpinned by a regulatory green light. This is ironic, because it was competition regulators who shot down Project Kangaroo nine years ago. That would have seen the major British broadcasters form an SVoD alliance. Carolyn McCall, ITV’s new Chief Executive, unveiled a “strategy refresh” at the broadcaster’s half-year financial update in July, including plans for a new subscription streaming service focused on distinctive British content. ITV already operates the BritBox streaming service in a joint venture with the BBC and AMC in North America. For the UK service, McCall said she is talking to a number of potential Netflix commissions from office. And, in partners. “Ninety-two out of 100 top Denmark, Spain, India and Germany July, Netflix programmes [viewed by UK consum- announced that ers] are British programmes,” she said. from 3% of the total in 2016 to a pre- it had chosen Madrid as the site for its “There is a bit of a gap and a bit of a dicted 11% this year, according to first European production hub. window. We have a strategic intention Ampere Analysis. For YouTube and Facebook, the to do something more in this area.” In the UK, Amazon hired former BBC strategy is a bit different. Their current A big part of that fightback is about and FremantleMedia commissioning monetisation models are not geared to distinctive, local content. Media analyst and acquisitions executive Georgia producing the high-end, premium Paolo Pescatore says: “We shouldn’t Brown last year to lead commissioning programmes that broadcasters and underestimate the value of local con- for Europe. The UK is, of course, a Netflix covet. But that looks to be tent and regional differences. With this crucial strategic growth market for changing, particularly with the launch in mind, it is paramount that the lead- Amazon, given its recent investments of YouTube Premium and Facebook’s ing global OTT providers invest in in premium football and tennis rights. push into video via Facebook Watch. locally produced content” to continue Other Faang (Facebook, Apple, Ama- So how should the legacy broadcast- to grow their services. zon, Netflix and Google) companies ers react? When Ofcom CEO Sharon Pescatore believes that broadcasters also have highly experienced local White says that she would “love to have should not be fighting against the Net­ commissioners in their game plans a British Netflix”,­ it seems the timing flixes and Amazons. “As the Faangs – Apple hired former Channel 4 chief might be right for a unified fightback spend more on local programming, creative officer Jay Hunt as creative from the BBC, ITV, Channel 5 and then there is no reason why they director for Europe, based in the UK, Channel 4. Similar moves are under- shouldn’t partner with broadcasters late last year as part of its original way to create joint broadcaster-led whose strength is in local content. development push. SVoD services in France and Germany. “It’s a great match for both tradi- At Netflix, ex-Canal+ documentary Creating this kind of SVoD platform tional providers and the Faangs. boss Diego Buñuel is overseeing docu- is not without its challenges, particu- Embrace change by partnering rather mentaries from a central London larly given the value of catch-up and than fighting the new world.” n

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2018 19 n the treacherous world of espio- British spooks employ a civilian, has nage there may no trickier riddle, not gone unnoticed by Cornwell. wrapped in no greater mystery, Otherwise, he assures me, it will be inside no more elusive enigma very different: “From an early view of than the following question: will The the results it is, in a good way, unlike there be a Night Manager II? Some anything I’ve ever seen on television. doubt there can be a follow-up to the It’s stunningly, beautifully, amazingly 2016I BBC One thriller because John le shot, hugely cinematic.” Carré did not write a sequel on which Drummer Girl will be followed, with it could be based. Others, just as secret filming starting “next year”, by The Spy cogently, argue that the BBC and The Who Came in from the Cold, based on Ink Factory, the production company le Carré’s first great novel. It was pub- which made it to such acclaim and lished in 1963 and swiftly made into a ratings, will not be able to resist. agent’s film starring Richard Burton. I suggest “Actually, not being cute, I really don’t that the movie’s greatness carries its know,” says Simon Cornwell, The Ink own problems. Factory’s Co-Chief Executive and son “It was, absolutely, a perfect film,” he of le Carré. “We don’t have scripts for agrees. “I mean, to drop names for a it yet, and we would only think about son moment, we made a movie a couple of making a second series of The Night years ago with Ang Lee and Ang would Manager if it was going to be really good. cite The Spy Who Came in from the Cold as, “And I’m sure that Hugh [Laurie] and in his view, a formally perfect film in Tom [Hiddleston] and Olivia [Colman], lots of ways, and I think that’s right. who are not exactly underemployed “I guess the beauty of revisiting it is actors, won’t want to come back unless that we have a completely fresh it’s excellent, frankly. And, you know, approach to it. Last year, my father we have all of le Carré’s body of work published A Legacy of Spies and a big to pick from.” section of that is essentially a prequel We are sitting, mid-heatwave, in The to [The Spy Who Came in from the Cold]. It Ink Factory office in Covent Garden, not fills a several-year hole in Smiley’s life far from the Circus, the fictional intelli- between the end of what is actually his gence HQ in le Carré’s Smiley novels. first novel, Call for the Dead, and the start Cornwell, 61, a tall, well-built man, is of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.” wearing – unbuttoned – a long, oat- But what of Smiley? Can anyone fill coloured waistcoat. Alec Guinness’s BBC costume depart- I have a sensitive question. How is it ment brogues? “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy that le Carré’s screen rights have fallen was a long time ago and the Smiley in into the laps of Simon and his writer The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is brother Stephen (the company’s other much younger. He’s in his late thirties,

Co-CEO, who works from LA)? Was it The Ink Factory early forties, I guess.” a gift? Their inheritance? If so, what Does that mean casting an actor who about the novelist’s two other sons? will continue to play him in subsequent Did he have to negotiate the deal, I The Billen profile Smiley adaptations? “I hope we cast a ask. “Yes, furiously.” Smiley who stays with us. Obviously, It wasn’t just done over a brandy one it’s a big ask of any actor to stay with us night? “I wish it had been done over a Andrew Billen meets over multiple stories, multiple years and, brandy one night. For all kinds of appro- Simon Cornwell, whose of course, Smiley himself grows quite a priate reasons to do with fairness within lot older over the sequence – but I think the family and, actually, to do with the production company, that it’s certainly fun to try.” law of the land, it needed to be a bona Both of the new serials have been fide, arm’s length deal. And so it is.” The Ink Factory, is best secured by the BBC. Cornwell fears, Whatever the future of The Night known for adapting however, for public service broadcast- Manager II, the Cornwells do have two ers’ ability to afford such series in the BBC le Carrés in gestation. The first, the novels of his father, future. The Night Manager cost £3.5m emerging this winter, and now in per episode. Thanks largely to the post-production, is The Little Drummer John le Carré demand for drama from Netflix and Girl, starring Florence Pugh and Alex- Amazon, costs have since risen by 40%. ander Skarsgård, and directed by Park The solution for The Ink Factory has Chan-wook. been co-productions with AMC in the It is the story of how Pugh’s charac- US and its own fundraising, recouped ter, an actress, is recruited on a Greek through foreign sales. As things stand, beach by Mossad to bring down a ter- Cornwell estimates that the BBC’s tariff rorist ring. The similarity to the prem- for Drummer Girl would finance just one ise of The Night Manager, in which and a half episodes.

20 The Little Drummer Girl All pictures: BBC

Cornwell loved the national obsession By the time his parents’ marriage that The Night Manager became on the broke down he was boarding at a rural BBC and knows his series would not prep school, whose name he cannot have made an equivalent impact had for the moment recall. After that came it been dumped on Netflix as a box set. Westminster School, which he loved. “It’s a wonderful thing and it’s lovely. “It’s a very public-school kind of On the other hand,” he reflects, “we thing to say but, if your parents have might have made more money. So, it is split up, then, from the age of eight or a trade-off. whatever it is, you’re basically looking “It is a real challenge for the public out for yourself,” he suggests. “You service broadcasters because so much probably spend more time at school of the conversation in any given year than you do with either parent.” is probably around half a dozen really Did it damage him? “Well, you’d good TV shows and, you know, we have to ask other people that. Rather want to have one of those shows and annoyingly, I probably thrived on it, to the BBC needs at least half of them.” be honest. And it was good fun. I ask if, after years in finance, he “I think that we were one of those enjoys making deals. “I do enjoy it but, strange families – I know this is disap- at the end of the day, it is all about the pointing to journalists – that was quality of what we do. No volume of superficially utterly dysfunctional but, smart deals ever turned a bad show in reality, highly functional.” into a good one.” After Oxford, where he switched Things are not always as they appear from physics to modern languages, he on a spreadsheet, or, for that matter, on went to the Thai-Laos-Cambodia bor- a CV. On paper, Simon’s childhood der to work for the International Rescue looks a disaster. He is the son of an Committee as it dealt with the horrors adulterous ex-spy who got famous and of Pol Pot. For the UNHCR, he helped whose strained marriage ended in build Khao-i-dang, a temporary refugee divorce in 1971 when Simon was barely camp that became the second largest in his teens. Cambodian city in the world, at its peak What he recalls, however, is a happy sheltering almost 500,000. start in life, travelling around Europe “We had 5,000 unaccompanied chil- and settling for a while in a town in dren, and that number grew over time Crete where his father pursued the to 12,000 or 14,000. So we set up a writing dream à la Lawrence Durrell. programme to try to track down the � The Night Manager

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2018 21 TWO WAY TV WAS WAY AHEAD OF ITS TIME… IN THE DOTCOM CRASH OF 2001, CORNWELL JOINED THE ‘10% CLUB’

Relief organisation feeding station north Cornwell’s east of Phnom Penh in January 1975

PA/Tea Kim Heang PA/Tea career

� families of those kids. Some of their just to make TV and feature films but Simon Anthony Vivian Cornwell, parents, obviously, had been slaugh- to spin off computer games and vir- joint CEO, The Ink Factory tered in the killing fields but, actually, tual-reality products from them. a lot of them hadn’t been.” The problem, they discovered, is Born 7 March 1957, Somerset, In the end, more than 4,000 children that “good is no longer good enough”. oldest of three brothers were reunited with their parents. A In a crowded and pricey market, only Brought up In Crete and Essex senior member of Cornwell’s team excellence gets noticed and makes Father David Cornwell, spy and, as was a Thai woman working for the UN money. Having nursed a few failures John le Carré, novelist called Mimi. They fell in love, married – including a big-screen adaptation Mother Alison Ann Veronica Sharp and have two sons. He left for Yale to of his father’s Our Kind of Traitor – film, Married To Mimi, two sons study management with the intention he judges, is even more hits-driven Education Frilsham Prep, Berkshire; of bringing his skills back to refugee than television. Westminster School; Wadham relief, “but, like many of the best “I think that more than half of all College, Oxford; Yale School of intentions, it got waylaid – actually films released lose money but a rela- Management by the need to pay off my debts”. tively small proportion then make Cornwell got a job at Boston Con- enough money to pay for the mistakes.” 1978-81 Works on a tracing pro- sulting. By the end of the 1980s, he Has Ink Factory made one of the gramme for Cambodian refugees believed he had spotted that interac- latter? “Actually, A Most Wanted Man, 1985 Boston Consulting Group tivity was the future of television. For which we did in 2014, is a small 1989 MD of interactive TV, Granada nine years, he battled away with his movie, but a commercially very suc- Group company, Two Way TV, trying to cessful movie – as well as, I think, 1989 Founds Two Way TV tempt customers to buy additional quite a good movie. Hopefully, the 2001 Joins Amadeus Capital boxes so that they could combine two things correlate. But we haven’t 2011 Founds The Ink Factory with games with live television. yet had a big, breakout-hit film.” brother Stephen It was pre-digital, and way ahead of He says he is obsessive about his its time. In the dotcom crash of 2001 work, which, he believes you have to Hits The Night Manager (BBC Cornwell joined the “10% club”, a club be in his business. Yet, as I have dis- One), A Most Wanted Man (Philip whose only membership requirement covered, there is another side to Seymour Hoffman’s last film), was to wake up one morning and Simon Cornwell, a side, I suggest, that Message from the King (a Net- find your company worth a tenth of could be spotted in The Night Mana­ flix top movie mainly because what it had been the night before. ger’s moral fury at Hugh Laurie’s arms it features Black Panther star So he went to bed as a millionaire, trader Richard Roper. ­Chadwick Boseman) and woke up as…? “Someone with a “I suppose at one level it is kind of Misses Our Kind of Traitor very large mortgage.” important to me, and important gen- Watching Norwegian thriller Monster He crossed the negotiating table erally, to care about people,” he says Not watching ‘I’ve been intrigued and became a venture capitalist at cautiously, for he is not at all pomp- by Love Island but not intrigued Amadeus Capital but, in 2011, he and ous, “but my work is also enormous to the point where I’ve actually his brother set up The Ink Factory; fun and very exciting.” watched an episode’ Stephen worked more closely with Simon Cornwell could, I realise, just Reading Andrew Michael Hurley’s screenwriters and Simon more as easily be talking about his father’s The Loney and Devil’s Day closely with investors. Its aim was not work as his own. n

22 OUR FRIEND ON THE ISLE OF MAN

Michael Wilson is ntil the begin- fast discovering Greenlight Television is based here. ning of the year, It makes motorsport for international the Isle of Man there is more to audiences, including the TT races for was shorthand ITV4 and road racing for the BBC. for “I’m almost the island than Mark Rowland’s latest venture, home…”. On my TT races and Formatzone, specialising in many flights unscripted, has an outpost on the home to Belfast or Dublin, when the stunning scenery island as well as in Birmingham. Its pilotU said we were flying over the Isle production Laurence of Suburbia is of Man, I knew landing was only a distributed by Sky Vision and is matter of minutes away. Over the beginning its international roll-out. years, based in Ireland but regularly The series is on air in New Zealand, in London, I must have flown over the Poland and South Africa. island more than 800 times – never The pan-European digital channel once did I give it a second thought. Motorsport.tv has just invested in the That changed in January, when I Isle of Man-based Duke Media. The became the CEO of Isle of Media, the deal will bring the Duke archive to a public-private partnership that aims global audience. to make the island a media hub. It’s not only production. I like a professional challenge and SES Satellite Leasing has recently thought this would be at the top end built a teleport, while Mediatech of the scale. Why would any media Advertising works internationally, and company uproot from their estab- Manx Telecom supports an IP-based lished base and set up on a rock? news service.

While I’m still getting to know the UTV A major facilities business is about island, as far as I can see there is no to announce its arrival to cater for the Greggs or Nando’s, and no Pret. There I’ve made it half way through the growing media opportunities and will is a Costa and a Starbucks. There is column without mentioning the tax import post-production projects. not one kilometre of motorway on rate: 0% corporation tax, 0% capital In the pipeline is an amazing media the whole 48km-long island, which gains tax and a maximum personal tech business, plus a number of ani- is, in its entirety, a Unesco Biosphere. taxation rate of 20%. While the BBC’s mation projects. Well, actually, all the reasons above Panorama painted a different picture, We are looking to become a major are good ones. Many businesses, the Isle of Man is officially “white eSports base, which will complement especially their owners, want to move listed” by the OECD for good practice the existing gaming businesses that to a place where the customer knows and transparency. flourish on the island. the barista’s name and they know So, how do we create a media cluster We even have incentives to deliver yours without writing it on a paper out of nothing? Well, that’s another businesses to the Isle of Man. These cup. The restaurants are varied. Often misunderstanding. There is already a include multimillion-pound govern- they are owned by the chef and cook serious media presence on the island. ment grants and funds, and media- with locally sourced ingredients. At one point, the Isle of Man was one savvy angel investors. With miles of beach, glen and of the British Isles’ busiest locations. Just like me, you may never have tramway, and with steam trains to More than 100 feature films and TV thought about the Isle of Man per se, commute on – and no speed limit on shows have been filmed here. We are let alone in a media business context, open roads – it’s a place for family now transitioning to a production, digi- but we can all be wrong. n and maverick alike. The island even tal media and technology hub, having has its own fairies, apparently. inherited a large creative talent base. Michael Wilson is CEO, Isle of Media.

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2018 23 Advertising UK broadcasters are against pooling TV ad sales, but there are other ways to co-operate, explains Gideon Spanier The case for collaboration

roadcasters need to be ­storming speech that celebrated the “more aggressive” in importance of making brands famous. pitching the value of TV The Big TV Festival was such a sig- to advertisers, and they nificant event for the UK ad industry should produce joint because the three leading commercial research to prove it, broadcasters showed that they were arguesB Ruth Cartwright, head of audio- willing to unite at a time when online visual media for Amplifi, part of agency platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook, group Dentsu Aegis Network. Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, are “The challenge for broadcasters is that, growing fast. The classic Guinness surfers advert despite all the evidence that we know to “The world is getting more competi- be true – that TV maximises campaign tive from a global perspective,” Jonathan reach, increases awareness and delivers Allan, Channel 4’s chief commercial to £750m over the same period. It took a competitive return on investment officer, told the gathering. He explained until 2016 for newspapers to put aside – advertisers and, frequently, media why he and his counterparts at ITV and their rivalries and look at pooling print planners undervalue TV,” she explains. Sky felt it was important to “speak and digital ad sales to make it easier A huge, heated marquee at a holiday more with one voice” and to “get more for advertisers to buy from them. campsite in Hampshire might seem visible, together externally selling TV”. The initial talks, called Project Juno, like an unlikely venue to champion the Broadcasters have not faced the same collapsed but News UK, publisher of future of TV advertising. But, back in structural declines that newspaper and the Sun and the Times, Telegraph Media February, that was where ITV, Chan- magazine publishers have suffered, as Group and Guardian Media Group nel 4 and Sky came together for the advertisers’ money has migrated to the agreed on a more modest proposal this inaugural Big TV Festival, an event internet giants. “Emotional” ads by summer to set up a joint venture, the aimed at wooing 150 young marketers brands such as John Lewis have shown Ozone Project. It will pool their digital and media planners over two days. that TV still has unrivalled mass, simul- display ad inventory and audience Ros King, director of marketing taneous reach and an ability to “con- data. communications at Lloyds Banking nect” with consumers in a way that Agencies welcomed the initiative as Group, described to the audience how tech platforms cannot match. a small step in the right direction, but Halifax’s TV ads featuring cartoon What’s more, targeted TV advertising, industry watchers think publishers characters from Top Cat had been so services such as Sky AdSmart, offer should have acted sooner. Enders effective. The bank kept bringing them growth opportunities for video on Analy­sis warns that the situation is akin back, running them in seven bursts demand (VoD). to climate change, in that “a meaningful over two years. Annual TV ad revenue in Britain has response” could come “too late”. Chaka Sobhani, chief creative officer risen from £4bn during the nadir of the Broadcasters are determined not to of ad agency Leo Burnett, and Rosie financial crisis in 2009 to a peak of make the same mistakes as publishers Arnold, head of art at fellow agency £5.2bn in 2016. Following a slight dip when it comes to collaboration. How- AMV BBDO, showed their favourite TV after the Brexit vote, it is forecast to be ever, for several reasons, pooling TV ad ads, such as the Guinness surfers and up marginally, at just over £5bn, in 2018, sales is not on the agenda. Yeo Valley’s rapping farmers. And Rory according to GroupM, the media-buying First, the TV market is governed by Sutherland, Vice-Chair of Ogilvy and a agency arm of WPP. the contract rights renewal (CRR) legis- Spectator columnist, warned about the By contrast, national newspaper ad lation introduced after the merger of perils of online advertising in a barn-­ revenue has nearly halved from £1.3bn Carlton and Granada in 2003. These

24 ITV and Channel 4 have each held on-off talks with Sky for years about joining AdSmart, but have been unable to agree commercial terms. Even if the broadcasters won’t pool ad sales, they could share audience data. Sources say that ITV and Chan- nel 4 are looking at how they could create a shared VoD data platform. Agencies are also pushing broadcast- ers and video platforms to adopt tech- nology that makes it easier to serve ads in a standardised way, instead of having lots of different software. Finecast, which launched last year, allows advertisers to serve VoD ads on 15 different types of device. These include Sky and Virgin Media set-top boxes, Roku and Chromecast stream- ing devices, Samsung connected TVs and Xbox gaming consoles. “I can’t explain how difficult and how compli- cated it has been and how long it has taken us to do that,” Nielsen says. BROADCASTERS The explosion in the number of devices has been good for TV because ARE DETERMINED it means there are more opportunities NOT TO MAKE THE to view content and advertising. But broadcasters are also having to grapple SAME MISTAKES with immense structural change, as AS PUBLISHERS consumers have more power to skip ads and are willing to pay for premium,

Guinness ad-free, global services such as Netflix. Suddenly, UK public service broad- rules protect advertisers from ITV abus- particularly around VoD, audience casters look small by comparison with ing its position as the dominant player data, technology and content. Setting international rivals, raising questions in TV ad sales. up the equivalent of the Ozone Project about whether the British creative Enders Analysis has warned that as a joint venture for VoD advertising industries could be at risk. This has CRR is anachronistic, because it (leaving aside regulatory hurdles) could prompted the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 encourages trading by share of ad have merit. to discuss plans for a joint, online spend on TV, rather than volume, in a While there is no great demand for streaming platform for British content. world where advertisers have lots of change in traditional TV ad sales, “the They have been given encouragement video options beyond TV. However, world of data-driven, VoD TV, where by Ofcom – a nine years after regula- Carolyn McCall, ITV’s new Chief Exec- you have to invest an awful lot of tors blocked a similar idea, Project utive, has ruled out a challenge to CRR money in technology and know-how, Kangaroo, on competition grounds. because she fears a “regulatory mire”. is where you start to have very inter- The imminent sale of Sky to Com- The second reason not to pool TV ad esting conversations about how you cast or Disney shows that broadcasters sales is that the market works reasona- can work together”, according to Jakob can no longer just think local as they bly well and efficiently. In 2003, there Nielsen, Chief Executive of Finecast, battle the tech giants. In a small, but were 10 TV sales houses. They have Group M’s VoD ad-buying platform. symbolic, move, Channel 4 has set up since merged into three main players: Ruth Cartwright adds that advertisers a joint digital sales venture, the Euro- ITV’s share is about 45%, while Chan- would like a high-quality alternative pean Broadcaster Exchange, with Ger- nel 4 (which also handles sales for to Google and Facebook that has no ad many’s ProSiebenSat, France’s TF1 and UKTV and BT) and Sky (which looks fraud, is brand-safe and has scale. “I do Mediaset in Italy and Spain, to attract after Viacom, Discovery, Fox and oth- think that any route to creating easily international advertisers – a growing ers) each have about 27%. That con- accessible premium content on a joint issue when Google and Facebook offer trasts with newspapers, where there [advertising] platform would be a good global ad sales. are still seven national sales teams. proposition,” she says. If the golden rule with advertising is Tess Alps, Chair of Thinkbox, the Sky’s AdSmart platform is already to follow the money, then there should marketing body for commercial TV, used by brands and agencies to target be no doubt that the future is greater says: “TV sales is now consolidated to viewers by demographic and location collaboration. n quite a great extent and the market on that broadcaster’s channels and seems to be happy with that.” online; its revenues rose 29% last year, Gideon Spanier is global head of media There are other ways to collaborate, albeit from a low base. at Campaign.

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2018 25 Doing comedy differently Channel 4

here are times when you producers… good writers… and have sit back and go, “Oh, this is Comedy the stamina to see it through, even one of the best jobs in the when they might not do amazingly in world – how did I get it?” the overnights.” enthuses Fiona McDer- Fiona McDermott, C4’s The comedy chief is on the hunt for mott, Channel 4’s head of head of comedy, tells shows that will become part of a cul- comedy. During her 18 months in the tural legacy. Growing up watching ‘job,T the channel has undergone dra- Pippa Shawley that she Channel 4 comedies that included Da matic changes, with the departure of Ali G Show, Green Wing and Black Books, David Abraham and Jay Hunt and the is determined to build McDermott is aware of the enduring arrival of Alex Mahon and Ian Katz. on the success of influence of comedy, and how it can Katz landed at the channel the same grow over time. week that Derry Girls launched to Derry Girls As Channel 4’s new director of pro- become Channel 4’s biggest comedy grammes, Katz vowed to put comedy opening since 2004, and the most- explosion.” The Inbetweeners Movie went back at the network’s heart. In May, he watched TV series in Northern Ireland on to break box-office records when announced a £10m investment in since records began. it was released in 2011, becoming the scripted comedy and comedy enter- It’s a rare thing for a sitcom to UK’s most successful comedy film of tainment, aimed at making Channel 4 become an overnight sensation. all time. “the unequivocal home of youthful, “It’s not for everyone to work in a “The biggest part of this job is having original, British comedy”. genre like this,” says McDermott, who the strength to back things that you McDermott says the financial “shot spent six years at the channel in com- believe in,” admits McDermott. in the arm” will help the channel to edy commissioning before being pro- Unlike her colleagues working in reach younger audiences at a time moted to her current post. “Comedy news and factual programmes, success when they are spoilt for choice. takes a really long time and it’s such a means redefining what makes a hit: “Channel 4 was just where you went team effort.” “Overnights matter, of course, they for that slightly alternative take, and Shows can take years to develop from do. Critical response matters. Public you found voices you hadn’t heard an idea into a full series. Jamie Deme- response matters. But I think that, in anywhere else,” she recalls of the triou’s recent Stath Lets Flats took more comedy, you can take a broader view channel’s comedy heyday. “When you than three. Even then, the work isn’t on it sometimes, and your heart has to were that age – late teens or whatever over. “It’s much quoted here, but The lead you on a bit.” – it was bloody cool to watch Chan- Inbetweeners’ three-series model was Confidence in the whole team is nel 4 comedy.” extraordinary,” the comedy boss essential, she continues. “From start to While the increasing number of explains. “Series 1 was fine, series 2 finish, you have to back your judge- rivals on the scene means that more went up a bit and then series 3 was an ment, you have to back your people have been able to get their big

26 break, it also means greater competi- is maybe one of the most beautiful bits viewers, albeit perhaps not in a context tion for talent. The challenge for Chan- of chemistry I’ve ever witnessed,” she of police checkpoints, bomb scares nel 4’s comedy team is to find and believes. “It continually dazzles me and peace murals. support new writers and performers. that they get freshness out of that rela- The show’s success in Northern “We have to [support] new talent tionship, and that is because the char- Ireland is a huge source of pride for the because that’s how we’re going to acters are so finely honed.” comedy boss. But it also served as a bring out new stars who will, hope- She advises writers that she is wake-up call, demonstrating the kind fully, feel kindred and local to the “always looking for a character that I’ve of programmes that public service channel,” says McDermott. “We also not seen before”. That doesn’t mean broadcasters should be making: “It have our eye on those bigger names pitching outlandish scenarios that no resonated with the community in that will draw in a bit more of the one will identify with. “It’s just about Northern Ireland and you realise, ‘God, commercial stuff, maybe by allowing that dial being turned up just a little bit.” they were so underserved!’” The second slightly bigger names to do what they Comedies need to be brave and to take series of the 1990s-based comedy wouldn’t normally do.” risks, even if that means telling stories begins filming later this year. She points to Sacha Baron Cohen, that initially might seem shocking. Other shows in the pipeline include: whose Channel 4 series Da Ali G Show “The best comedies feel comfortable Matt Berry’s Year of the Rabbit (imagine propelled him to international fame in after a time… but you can’t be too com- The Sweeney set in Victorian England); 2000. Eighteen years on, Baron Cohen fortable from the out, otherwise it’s Happy AF (still just a working title) written has been back on the channel this soft and it’s mild and you feel like and starring Aisling Bea (with Sharon summer with Who Is America? you’ve seen it before.” Horgan playing her sister); and Rufus “There’s no one who does what he Lisa McGee’s idea for Derry Girls was Jones’s Home, which follows the experi- does,” says McDermott. “The balls on one such story that turned up the dial ences of Sami, a Syrian refugee who that man are off the scale. It was a real of a school-based sitcom, set against enters Britain illegally to claim asylum. reminder [that] Channel 4 is a sup- the backdrop of the Troubles in North- While it’s hard to predict the next porter of that, and that’s fantastic.” ern Ireland. From the stern school Peep Show-level hit, McDermott McDermott says it’s “gorgeous” to headmistress Sister Michael, to whim- believes that there are series in the work with established talent such as sical cousin Orla, the characters in the schedule with the potential to have a Simon Blackwell on Back, Stephen series are recognisable to most lasting place on the cultural landscape. Mangan on Hang Ups and Sharon Hor- “We’ll only be making more comedy,” gan and Rob Delaney on Catastrophe. she says of future plans. “We’ll only be “Sharon and Rob writing Catastrophe taking more risks and breaking more new talent in the coming years and, hopefully, finding a young audience with it, who’ll grow up in the same way I did… with comedy that makes you feel part of something.” n

Derry Girls Channel 4

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2018 27 Local shows for local people

HBO Europe enjoyed a hit in the Czech Republic with the award-winning drama series Burning Bush

HBO Europe As competition bites, HBO Europe is ramping up original production across the continent, reports

atria, a drama series Stuart Kemp phones or about families ripped tablets. Patria will apart by ETA, the Basque provide a litmus test separatist group that for the company’s belief in the power killed around 830 peo- of local shows for local people. It is ple during its 50-year central to HBO’s strategy to win eye- campaignP for independence from “There is an appetite for scripted balls in the face of formidable global Spain, provides the storyline for HBO drama of the highest level among the competition from local, free-to-air Europe’s foray into a new territory. [Spanish] audience that I have not seen broadcasters, pay-TV giants and Netflix It is adapted from Fernando Aram- in my career before. And I am an old and Amazon’s deep-pocketed stream- buru’s novel of the same name by San geezer,” says Root, 64, with a smile. ing services. Sebastián-born screenwriter Aitor HBO Europe offers programming to Spain is shaping up as ground zero Gabilondo, and is the first project to subscribers through three services for this battle. Netflix recently be developed by HBO España, HBO covering 17 countries. HBO España is announced that its first production Europe’s newest commissioning hub. available to subscribers as an SVoD base outside North America will be The company plans to make “two, service and via an exclusive partner- in Madrid. The streamer is investing maybe three, shows a year out of ship with Vodafone Spain – customers heavily in Spanish-language content, Spain”, says Antony Root, head of orig- access the streaming service via Voda- and is producing 20 originals in Spain inal production for HBO Europe. fone TV or on their computers, smart- this year. They include Isabel Coixet’s

28 Elisa y Marcela, and season 3 of popular Agnieszka Holland. Based on real local TV series Las Chicas del Cable, made events and characters, Burning Bush by Madrid’s Bambú Producciones. focuses on student Jan Palach, who set Erik Barmack, vice-president of himself on fire in 1969 to protest at the international originals at Netflix, says Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia. the move “will create new opportuni- The show went on to win awards and ties for Spain’s incredible creative emboldened HBO Europe’s local-­ talent, as well as demonstrating our content strategy. commitment to the production of It built its own internal writing original content throughout Europe”. teams within the central European UK producers are looking on with countries. The game plan involved interest. They wonder who will make growing a generation of writers by the next move and where the opportu- working on adaptations and then nities lie for them. grooming them to do original work. It “It is great that you can now make would later repeat this in the Nordic an ambitious piece of television in two region and, subsequently, in Spain. or three languages and versions if you It strove to work with film-makers want to,” says Kevin Loader of Free and talent at the top of their game. It YOU CAN BUY Range Films, whose credits include The was a canny move that Netflix is seek- Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies. ing to emulate. ORIGINAL HBO Europe was created in 1991. It “Of course, you can buy original SERIES FROM started out with adap- series from America but original local AMERICA BUT tations of existing programming has a big marketing international formats, impact with very high viewing figures,” ORIGINAL LOCAL says media and telecoms analyst PROGRAMMING François Godard at Enders Analysis. “It is successful in popular culture HAS… IMPACT because people talk about it. Original programming gives you relevance in the marketplace for a relatively mod- est investment.” As an example, he points to Spanish pay-TV company Telefónica, which creates 12 TV series for around €100m – com- pared with paying €1bn a year for football rights. HBO Europe now comprises several constituent parts: in Scandinavia, HBO Nordic has established itself with its “The home of series” strand, offering HBO a premium SVoD service directly to consumers and via operator partners in Sweden, Norway, Finland and most notably Denmark. the Hebrew-language In Central Europe, HBO is available Israeli series BeTipul, to subscribers in Hungary, the Czech which HBO America remade in English Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, as In Treatment, starring Gabriel Byrne. Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Rather than buy the US version from Montenegro, Macedonia and Bosnia HBO, Linda Jensen, then head of HBO and Herzegovina. Central Europe, decided to begin mak- Content for both regions is being fed ing versions for individual European by HBO Europe’s own talent pools. territories. And in an effort to unearth talent in HBO Europe has created iterations the Adria region of the former Yugo- of BeTipul in Poland, the Czech Repub- slavia, the company recently launched lic and Romania. In Hungary and the a scriptwriting competition. Czech Republic, it has made local The winner was Marjan Alčevski’s versions of romcom When Shall We Kiss?. Success, about four strangers bound Root arrived in 2011 and, in his sec- together by one violent event. The ond year, HBO Europe enjoyed a series is the first original series from local-language hit in the Czech the region. Filming took place in the Republic with Burning Bush, directed by Croatian capital of Zagreb earlier this world-renowned Polish film-maker year. It was directed by Bosnian Danis �

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2018 29 � Tanović, the first foray into TV for the Oscar-winning writer and director of China No Man’s Land. The company is reaping the rewards Marcus Ryder offers some advice to British of having operated across Central and Eastern Europe for more than 20 years. producers worried by the complexities of “It takes years to build up the human resources, the people who know how appealing to Chinese audiences to write for TV, shoot for TV, people who know the rhythms and needs,” says Godard. HBO Nordic has green-lit Beforeigners from Lilyhammer creators Anne Bjorn- stad and Eilif Skodvin. Directed by What Norwegian film-maker Jens Lien, the near-future science fiction series is a smart satire on attitudes towards immigration and western society. It is the division’s second original produc- Chinese tion, and follows acclaimed Swedish director Lukas Moodysson’s comedy series Gösta, which recently wrapped. HBO Europe’s first international co-production, Hackerville, is a six-part viewers want series conceived by Deutschland 83 co-creator Joerg Winger and Ralph Martin. Produced by Romanian film- maker Cristian Mungiu and producer few months ago, the brought into sharp focus earlier this Tudor Reu via their Bucharest-based trade association Pact year with the release of the movie Mobra Films, the Romanian-German organised a group of Black Panther. Around the world, the thriller about a network of hackers is television producers, movie was heralded as a breakthrough co-produced with TNT Serie and directors and industry for diversity. It had an almost exclu- filmed in Germany and Romania. It insiders to visit China. sively black cast and was predomi- will air later this year. OneA of the producers on that trip was nantly set in Africa. Crucially, it broke The hope is that such ambitious an old friend. We were able to catch up box-office records. output will also travel across borders. over dinner when I took her to a street- But, in China, the international A local story well told should have food spot that most tourists miss. media focused on how badly it did universal appeal, runs the theory. All The British producer had been in compared with its popularity in the the new original language shows will meetings with top Chinese media exec- US and Europe. Significantly, the com- be available across all 17 countries in utives. She said there had been a num- mentators assigned a large part of that which HBO Europe operates. ber of really positive conversations. But to a racist audience. In the US, they will play on HBO Go, there had been one question she had If I was a UK media exec keen to HBO Now, and HBO On Demand, the been dying to ask her Chinese counter- break into the Chinese market, my one company’s VoD platforms. In the UK, parts but had put off for fear of offend- takeaway from the Black Panther head- HBO Europe-created content has aired ing them. Over some Yunnanese lines would be: do not cast black peo- on Channel 4’s Walter Presents. The specialities, she asked me in a whisper, ple in leading roles. shows include Burning Bush and The “Is China’s TV audience racist?” However, on closer examination of Border, and content is sold into the mar- Putting my personal politics to one the Black Panther numbers, the Chinese ket on a case-by-case basis. Sky Atlan- side, I think that this is not only a fair audience appears far from racist. First tic and Sky’s on-demand service Now question to ask but an incredibly of all, the movie took $21m on its TV play host to HBO’s English-­language important one. If British television opening day, the second-highest debut output via its deal with Sky. producers are to succeed in selling their for a Marvel movie in China. It is true “We wouldn’t be creating original programmes in what is, measured by that, after an amazing opening week- programming if we didn’t think it was revenue, the third-largest TV market in end, ticket sales dropped dramatically. commercial,” says Root. “When you the world, they need to know what Cue the predictable headlines that this offer programming you have a different Chinese audiences like and dislike. was evidence of China’s racism. relationship with your audience than if This can influence who you cast in a But if the newspapers had returned you simply acquire programming. lead or even the types of stories you to the story not long after, they would “A lot of what we do in our business tell. After all, diversity might be great to have found that it went on to make at HBO is defined by the people you talk about but not so great if it prevents $100m in just two weeks. This was get to work with. We aim for an extra an entire market from buying your ahead of established superhero fran- dimension, whatever that HBO magic programme. chise episodes, such as Avengers: Age dust is, we want to apply it to these This question of whether China’s of Ultron and Spider-Man: Homecoming. local shows.” n film and TV audiences are racist was And if you start to look at other

30 experienced elsewhere. I’ve seen adverts for personal English tutors specifically ask for “whites only”. It is not uncommon for black people to be photographed at tourist attractions almost as much as the attraction itself. However, based on my experience of living in China for almost three years, this racial ignorance does not translate into Chinese people rejecting black characters on screen. But, anecdotally, there does seem to be a strong reaction against political correctness. In speaking to Chinese friends and colleagues, if viewers per- ceive any political correctness in the casting or the story being told, they will often reject elements of the show out of hand. I have received different explanations for this. Some suggest that it is a reac- tion to western ideology and values, which some viewers see as propaganda. Other people have proposed almost the opposite, that it is a reaction to a history of Chinese state propaganda, where people have been told what to think, and so they balk at any hint of “thought-police”. In 2014, the UK and Chinese ­governments signed a memorandum of understanding to increase film ­co-­productions between the two countries. At the same time, Pact ­brokered a deal with the Chinese state broadcaster aimed at increasing pro- gramme commissions, co-productions and acquisitions. An early win for the UK was Silver- gate Media getting two children’s series on screen later that year. But other successes have been slow to come. BBC Studios has a representative in Beijing examining co-production and licensing opportunities. As you would expect with a popula- tion of 1.4 billion people, the Chinese television audience is a complex one. It defies easy categorisation. But trying Black Panther

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Pictures Motion Studios Disney Walt to understand that complexity is key to British companies succeeding in the ­foreign movie successes, China seems audiences think of non-white, non-­ Chinese market. Simple stereotypes positively to embrace non-Chinese, Chinese actors in films. They should about the Chinese audience will not non-white actors. China is consuming not be scared of making casting deci- help; understanding the nuances of Bollywood films as never before. sions that accurately reflect the glo- what makes the audience tick will. The Hindi-language film Dangal was balised, multicultural world we live in. And, as I told my producer friend a huge hit in 2017, earning $190m. It “So, are you telling me that Chinese from Pact, if you are lucky enough to wasn’t a one-off. Its success has been people are not racist?” asked my Brit- cast Idris Elba or Thandie Newton as followed by other Indian films, such as ish producer friend. I almost choked the lead of your next six-part series, Secret Superstar, Bajrangi Bhaijaan and on my pineapple rice (a wonderful please do not lie awake at night worry- Hindi Medium. Yunnanese speciality, by the way) ing that China won’t buy your show. n I mention these details because I when she asked me that one. In China, think it is important for British TV I have experienced levels of racial Marcus Ryder is chief international editor producers to know what Chinese ignorance that I have never of China Global Television News.

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2018 31 RTS NEWS Cardiff engineer takes tech prize

BC Wales technology involved in the development support engineer of new systems for BBC Gareth Reid is the Wales when it moves to new winner of the RTS/ headquarters next year. BAtos Young Technologist BBC Wales technology Award 2018. support manager Kevin Mur- Reid, who graduated from phy said: “Gareth has played the BBC Broadcast Engineer- a key role in supporting all ing Scheme after joining as our broadcast technologies. an apprentice in 2013, “The ambition and drive receives an all-expenses paid that he has shown, coupled trip to the broadcasting trade with an eagerness to both show IBC in Amsterdam this mentor and disseminate his September. knowledge to his colleagues, The young engineer was make him a valuable asset to chosen to receive the award, us here in BBC Wales.” which is sponsored by digital The runner up and recipi- technology giant Atos, by a ent of the Coffey Award for panel of industry judges, Excellence in Technology chaired by digital media 2018 is Alex Snell from Gareth Reid

consultant Terry Marsh. BCi Digital. BBC “It was a very strong field The RTS set up the Young this year. However, Gareth Technologist Award with towers and masts. The aim of stood out immediately,” funding from the family of the award is to advance edu- Previous RTS Young said Marsh. broadcasting engineer AM cation in the science, prac- Technologist Award Reid is based in Cardiff, and Beresford-Cooke, who is best tice, technology and art of winners works in both TV and radio remembered for his work on television. https://bit.ly/2LItmnu facilities. He has been heavily VHF and UHF transmission Matthew Bell Blue Room showcases BBC technology

It was a meeting of television uses pictures that themselves, not just the its latest networking evening. techie minds when are 3,840 pixels by 2,160 (four number of them. Seventy guests joined the RTS Midlands teamed times the resolution of HDTV The latest features include: RTS centre and a mix of

Midlands Centre up with the BBC Blue images). More dots means high dynamic range; an producers, writers, musi- Room to offer a glimpse into more detail, which sounds increase in the available light cians, composers and those the future of television. great in theory. But, in reality, range, which offers incred- hoping to break into the TV The BBC Blue Room in the human eye is not up to ible contrast; wider colour industry at the Colmore Club Birmingham is an interactive the job. As the amount of gamut, which, simply put, in Birmingham. exhibition showcasing the detail in an image increases, means a move from millions Dorothy Hobson, Vice- best in the corporation’s viewers have to get closer to to billions of colours; and Chair of the RTS centre, said: innovative technologies. At the screen to notice the high frame rates, which offer “It was another very success- the July event, “The future is difference. more pictures per second. ful evening, when the room now”, TV producers had the Because UHD does not Over the next few years, the was buzzing with chat, the opportunity to put their make enough difference in last could revolutionise exchange of ideas and new geekiest questions to Blue picture quality without forc- sports coverage. contacts being made.” Room expert Colin Warhurst ing audiences to sit almost n The week before, in early RTS Midlands is planning – and discovered much that on top of their television sets, July, Women in Film & Tele- more networking events for astounded them. the industry is making vision UK and Film Birming- the coming year. Ultra-high definition (UHD) changes to the pixels ham joined RTS Midlands for Jenny Wilkes

32 Channel 4 drama Ackley Bridge enjoyed a triumphant night at

Yorkshire Yorkshire Centre the RTS Yorkshire Programme Awards in July. The popular secondary school-set series, which is made by the Forge, scooped four top prizes, including the prestigious Drama award. Poppy Lee Friar, who plays feisty Missy Booth, scopped the Actor prize; Penny Wool- cock took home the Director Fiction prize; and Tim Phil- lips won the Music award. More than 350 guests attended the ceremony at the Queens Hotel in Leeds, which was hosted by Ellie and Izzi Warner, two of the stars of Channel 4 show Gogglebox. True Vision Yorkshire’s Catching a Killer: The Search for Poppy Lee Friar (centre) in Ackley Bridge

Natalie Hemming (Channel 4) Channel 4 took home two prizes: the Documentary Series and Professional Excellence: Factual Production awards. School drama tops class “The family of Natalie Hemming, the victim of the murder covered in the series, Outstanding Achievement In the Factual Entertain- York-based indie Air Tele- attended and spoke very award was made to Screen ment and Features category, vision’s work was also recog- movingly about their loss Yorkshire Chief Executive Shiver took home the award nised at the ceremony with and how important they Sally Joynson for her contri- for ITV’s Elton John: The the Independent Spirit thought the documentary had bution to TV in Yorkshire. Nation’s Favourite Song, and the award. A total of 23 awards been in raising awareness The Single Documentary Low-cost Factual prize went were presented in this, the about domestic violence and award was won by the BBC to Air Television for UKTV’s 14th year of the awards. coercive relationships,” said Four film Handmade in Hull. 999 Rescue Squad. Matthew Bell RTS Yorkshire secretary Lisa Holdsworth. RTS Yorkshire winners Regional news programme Factual Entertainment and Features• Promotion or Commercial Produc- Look North also enjoyed suc- Elton John: The Nation’s Favourite tion•Larry and Paul: The Newsreader Outstanding Achievement• Song•Shiver for ITV Nightmare•BBC and online Sally Joynson, Screen Yorkshire cess at the ceremony. The News or Current Affairs Reporter• Second Screen•My Glasto Lineup• BBC’s East Yorkshire and Drama (sponsored by York St John Phillip Norton, Look North•BBC East Joi Polloi/BBC Creative for the BBC University)•Ackley Bridge•The Forge Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Lincolnshire service secured for Channel 4 Professional Excellence – Drama and News or Current Affairs Story•‘House Comedy Production•Slung Low pro- two awards: News or Current Actor•Poppy Lee Friar, Ackley Bridge• Prices’, Look North•BBC Yorkshire The Forge for Channel 4 duction team, Flood: To the Sea • Affairs Reporter for Phillip News Programme•Manchester Arena Slung Low for BBC Two Director Fiction•Penny Woolcock, Bomb, Look North•BBC Yorkshire Norton and Presenter for Ackley Bridge•The Forge for Channel 4 Professional Excellence – Drama Presenter•Peter Levy, Look North• and Comedy Post-production•James Peter Levy. Writer•Charlie Swinbourne, Deaf BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Ridgway and Gareth Bull, dubbing Funny•Juggle Productions/British Sign mixers, Victoria 2•Mammoth Screen BBC Yorkshire’s Look North Language Broadcasting Trust (BSLBT) One to Watch•Kerry Maule• for ITV for the Community Channel/BSLBT Made in Leeds was equally successful, taking Professional Excellence – Factual Pro- Animation•Troy Story•Fettle Animation the News or Current Affairs Music•Tim Phillips, Ackley Bridge• duction•Catching a Killer: The Search The Forge for Channel 4 for the Open University for Natalie Hemming•True Vision Story award for “House Single Documentary•Handmade in Independent Spirit (Sponsored by Yorkshire for Channel 4 Hull•BBC Studios for BBC Four Channel 4 Nations & Regions)• Professional Excellence – Factual prices” and the News Pro- Air Television gramme award for Manchester Documentary Series•Catching a Killer: Post-production•The Yorkshire Vet The Search for Natalie Hemming •True Low-cost Factual•999 Rescue Squad• post- production team•Daisybeck Arena Bomb. Vision Yorkshire for Channel 4 Air Television for UKTV Studios for Channel 5 The RTS Yorkshire 2018

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2018 33 RTS NEWS

ONLINE at the RTS n After weeks of designing, building and tweaking, RTS TV launched this summer. The new section of the RTS website is a hub for all our video content, from red-carpet interviews to a behind-the-scenes look at some of Britain’s best-loved shows. You can also find videos of all RTS early-evening events. Videos are now fully integrated on the website, so you will see more relevant content popping up alongside them. You can check out RTS TV at: www.rts.org.uk/rts-tv. n Earlier in the summer, RTS digital intern Louisa Cavell met Age Before Beauty the cast and crew of To Provide BBC All People, a BBC Wales pro- duction about the work of the National Health Service as it turns 70. The live-action poem Drama scrubs up well was written by Owen Sheers and features an all-star cast, including Eve Myles, Celia Imrie RTS North West offered constantly feuding. “I like to “I wanted a grabbing and Michael Sheen. an early peek at Debbie write about secrets and the opening to introduce the big Myles, who grew up reading Horsfield’s new drama, hidden subterfuges in fami- cast and show how they all

Sheers’s poetry, told the RTS North West Centre Age Before Beauty, at a lies,” she said. fit in,” she explained. “We that she felt a strong affinity sold-out event in late July. Setting the drama in a fam- think we know all about the with the NHS and its staff due The drama, which is made ily business added another characters but it’s much to the difficult birth of her first by Mainstreet Pictures and dimension to the drama: “The more complicated, so the child: ‘I’ll never, ever forget stars Polly Walker, Robson way families act in workplace [non-linear] structure is what they did for me, and the Green, Sue Johnston and Lisa settings presents a melting about going back and show- hours they put in and just how Riley, has been broadcast on pot of ideas. It’s a great source ing how we got to that place.” it was normal to them to be BBC One over the summer. of drama, end of.” The first episode offers a so caring and professional and RTS North West hosted the She continued: “I started glimpse into the complicated clever and loving.’ You can preview of the six-part series by looking at how people do personalities of the drama’s read more at: www.rts.org.uk/ at Salford’s Lowry Theatre or don’t act their own age characters. “Getting old is ToProvideAllPeople. with many of the cast in and who decides what is not an option,” says one of attendance, followed by a appropriate for particular the many strong female n The digital team is pleased Q&A with Horsfield, who age groups. characters, Leanne, who to be working with Accenture was interviewed by BBC “What we see as Age Before epitomises 21st-century once again to provide an app Radio 5 Live’s Anna Foster. Beauty continues is that none glamour. for this month’s RTS London Age Before Beauty is set in a of the characters fall into Kelly Harrison, who plays Conference. struggling, family-run beauty their stereotype.” Leanne, said: “These charac- The app, which can be down- salon in Manchester’s fash- Horsfield discussed her ters are so layered and dis- loaded from the App Store or ionable Northern Quarter. thinking behind the explo- tinctive.” And, it’s not just the Google Play Store (please Horsfield, whose many sive opening of the drama in their personalities that are search for ‘Royal Television successful dramas include which the central character, multilayered, she added: Society’) will offer information Poldark and Cutting It, revealed Bel (Walker), discovers a “We spent so much time on on the conference speakers, that family dynamics are at secret on her husband's the make-up truck every programme and more. the heart of Age Before Beauty, phone that has the potential morning.” Pippa Shawley whose characters are to wreak havoc in the family. Laura FitzPatrick

34 RTS PATRONS RTS Principal BBC Channel 4 ITV Sky Patrons

RTS A+E Networks International NBCUniversal International International Akamai The Walt Disney Company Patrons CGTN Turner Broadcasting System Inc Discovery Networks Viacom International Media Networks Facebook YouTube Liberty Global

RTS Accenture Deloitte ITN Sargent-Disc Major Amazon Video EndemolShine KPMG STV Group Patrons Atos Enders Analysis McKinsey and Co TalkTalk Audio Network Entertainment One Motion Content UKTV Boston Consulting Finecast Group Vice Group FremantleMedia OC&C Virgin Media BT IBM Pinewood Studios YouView Channel 5 IMG Studios S4C

RTS Alvarez & Marsal LLP Grass Valley PricewaterhouseCoopers Vinten Broadcast Patrons Autocue Isle of Media Raidió Teilifís Éireann Digital Television Group Lumina Search UTV Television

Who’s who Patron Chair of RTS Trustees CENTRES COUNCIL RTS Futures at the RTS HRH The Prince of Wales Tom Mockridge Dan Adamson Alex Wootten Lynn Barlow Vice-Presidents Honorary Secretary Charles Byrne IBC Conference Liaison David Abraham David Lowen Dan Cherowbrier Terry Marsh Dawn Airey Caren Davies Sir David Attenborough OM Honorary Treasurer Kieran Doherty RTS Technology Bursaries CH CVO CBE FRS Mike Green Stephanie Farmer Simon Pitts Baroness Floella Cat Lewis Benjamin OBE BOARD OF TRUSTEES Jane Muirhead AWARDS COMMITTEE Dame Colette Bowe OBE Lynn Barlow Will Nicholson CHAIRS Lord Bragg of Wigton Julian Bellamy Nikki O’Donnell Awards & Fellowship John Cresswell Tim Davie Tony Orme Policy Adam Crozier Mike Green Fiona Thompson David Lowen Mike Darcey David Lowen Judith Winnan Greg Dyke Anne Mensah Craft & Design Awards Lord Hall of Birkenhead Tom Mockridge SPECIALIST GROUP Lee Connolly Lorraine Heggessey Simon Pitts CHAIRS Ashley Highfield Jane Turton Archives Programme Awards Armando Iannucci OBE Rob Woodward Dale Grayson Wayne Garvie Ian Jones Baroness Lawrence of EXECUTIVE Diversity Student Television Clarendon OBE Chief Executive Angela Ferreira Awards David Lynn Theresa Wise Phil Edgar-Jones Sir Trevor McDonald OBE Early Evening Events Ken MacQuarrie Dan Brooke Television Journalism Gavin Patterson Awards Trevor Phillips OBE Education Sue Inglish Stewart Purvis CBE Graeme Thompson Sir Howard Stringer

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2018 35 RTS_ADVERTISING_A4_20180808.pdfRTS_ADVERTISING_A4_20180808.pdf 1 1 08/08/2018 08/08/2018 17:02 17:02

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