Ah, TV Festival weekend - bank holiday - always heralds the end of the summer. But this year, no need for the brolly at all! I went back for the first time in a few years. Lots of new faces, but also the old ones - still there, just changed places with each other.
Kicking things off (literally) was TV's Got to Dance - TV executives craving attention again (already!) - battling it out for the delegates' votes - Deborah Turness and the ITN team nailed it - after apparent warnings from John Hardie, ITN CE: 'to lose this so publicly could lead to the loss of ITV and Channel 4 news'. No pressure then!
Masterchef a Masterclass was fascinating - seems its the number one show in Oz (sports aside, naturally), in production in 20 countries by the end of 2010, selling to 145 countries in one form or another - reinventing a brand can be challenging but Liam Keelan, Controller of BBC Daytime told us this one is a schedulers dream - it can play in daytime, family time, peak time in its various guises - from amateur, to pro to celebrity to junior. What makes it different, say the Shine Execs is that it strives to avoid the 'nasty reality' label - as Karen Ross, Executive Editor from Shine points out 'the cooking is challenging enough'. Executives from ITV (Zai Bennet) and BBC (Ben Gayle) battled it out on stage, whilst the panel debated 'secret ingredients' of the success of the brand - though only Karen could pronounce that wonderful Scottish dessert 'Cranachan' - pronounced Cra nach (as in Loch not Lock) an....proving you dont have to be Scottish to be able to say it. And Ben Gayle (narowly) managed the Steak au poivre and Cranachan courses most beautifully (according to the two judges picked randomly out of the audience).
I wandered out and into Meet the Controller - Richard Klein - BBC4 - whose successes include Newswipe, Enid, Getting on, Mrs Mandela and of course the US import phenomomen Mad Men. His view is that the channel is not defined by what it does but how it does it. So, arts, music, culture at its heart but not to the exclusion of other shows. Its secret ingredient is 'presenters who have opinions'. Priorities include more events (possibly live stage shows including theatre) - reflections of contemporary society and new faces - presenters with something to say - gives the audience added value. The Channel is getting 1.5 million regularly and growing.
All Super Indies are Bastards - was a lively session with Tim Hincks (Endemol) and Stuart Murphy (Sky1) each wisecracking about the shortcomings of the other and Helen Veale (Outline Productions) and Graham Stuart (So TV) arguing the case for the small and medium sized indie. Seems Stuart (Murphy) would not favour lots of expensively produced by the big boys pilots over an idea brought to him (solely and not to every other channel) by the smaller players with pilot part funded by him. Tim Hincks went as far as to suggest that maybe there should be a quota to protect small indies - some lobbying by PACT could follow (maybe not).
Since Alice Morrison's blog on the MacTaggart lecture (and come to think of it, other sessions) is bound to be more enlightening than mine, I'll leave it to Alice and the press to inform you on that one (you're probably well up on this one by this point anyway)
There was a wonderful moment in The Wonderful Wizards of Weatherfield (celebrating Coronation Street's 50th anniversary) whereby Tony Warren (the show's creator) - a big fan, incidentally of reality shows, replied to a question from the audience 'why is the show full of strong women and wet men'. Tony refuted that today's show is full of wet men but concedes that his early shows were indeed like that. Tony explained that he had no strong male role models in his life - well none that were straight - he was brought up by women and his views involved perceptions of absentee fathers (though I think a clog dancing Grandfather was mentioned). Actress Katherine Kelly (Becky) loves being in the show 'its like real life with all the boring bits taken out'. When asked for views on Eastenders, Tony said 'its very easy when you've been shown how'...seems Eastenders magnanimously conceded this in a later session!
Paul Abbott - (Alternative MacTaggart) - engaged a large audience on the state of current drama 'the cake mix ingredients are too predictable' and he talked of his positive experiences of team writing in the USA (Shameless USA clips were good) and how we might adapt to that system (if we were not so 'arsey') and that if it works for our soaps, why wouldn't it work for long running drama. He also questions why we keep asking the audience what it wants - he believes strongly the audience is waiting for 'something that will blow its tits off' - Cracker, Prime Suspect and other shows like that were strong and bold - we've gotten too safe and our runs are too short. Development is 'too scattered'. He recommended the US style of investing in team writing and talent (who are under (paid) option for up to 7 years).
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt - much has been said about this in the press - neither the Newscorp question nor the probings about his previous assertions about BBC overspend question fazed him. He gave slick answers to all. He concedes that Conservative governments have not been traditionally popular with the media but says he'll talk to anybody who will talk to him. One priority is to improve broadband in the UK. We need a strong BBC and strong competetors. ITV needs a lighter touch regulatory approach met with some nods, but his belief that local tv could be sustained commercially for potentially 80 channels was met by a sharp intake of breath from the audience.
An Audience with Andy Harries - I knew this would be fun, having worked with Andy at Granada (The Queen, Cold Feet, Royle Family) - Andy is a great storyteller and has a passion for nurturing and growing talent. His story about asking Ray Winstone in the Ivy if he would be interested in being Henry VIII was great, but you had to be there. Suffice to say the headline in one of the papers the day after that series first txd echoed the views of some of the audience 'Did you see cockney Enery on the old auntie Nelly last night?' was the headline (that last part is my memory, not Andy's story). His company Left Bank, seems to be going from strength to strength and Andy talked about the importance of co-financing to drama today - involving several countries, as evident from his version of Wallander and Kenneth Brannagh.
Much later, the revellers at the packed George Hotel party were treated it seems to another Executive music fest involving Tim Hincks and others, but sadly I didnt arrive in time for that - having been detained at dinner at the whisky society noisily with friends/colleagues for longer than was probably decent (I dont even drink whisky)
Sunday morning, caught some of Doctor Who a Masterclass -seems a real cliff hanger to follow between a change of format - two shorter runs next time - so we can look forward to that. Karen Gillan (Amy Pond) I felt demonstrated extraordinary strengths in appearing to er buck up a large percentage of the hungover from party delegates.
Not being one to tweet (come on, get with the technology Maureen), I thought I'd be the last then to have heard that Katie Price had pulled out the evening before...but no...large numbers of unashamed people left the 'Katie Price, Shrink Rap' session upon hearing this news (some had the decency to wait half an hour). Stuart Cosgrove did a great job of turning the session around so that it was not a waste of time either for us or for the (presumably flown in specially from the US) Pamela Connolly. Pamela instead talked about other celebs who had been interviewed by her including Tony Curtis (who never got over the death of his brother whilst they were supposed to be playing together), Stephen Fry and also Billy, when probed. Seems she leaves the shrink stuff at the office having been warned off by Billy previously 'cut the psycho babble'. And since she leaves it at the office, she cant help but then be like the rest of us - her other half can be 'incredibly irritating'. She also talked about the rest of us, having goals - seems its in our nature that when we reach the goal, depression (mild or otherwise) can be experienced until you identify the next goal. She explained this may be why so many celebs make public mistakes - what is the new goal when it seems you have it all? Possibly to fail then climb back into the saddle again (not her words but what I took from it)
More Exec shenanigans followed then to end the weekend - 5 hopefuls involved in stand up comedy, having been mentored by a real comic. They all did really well - Dawn Porter, to Gail Porter and all in between. Helen Veale won the coveted trophy in an X factor type voting scenario involving the audience. I have to say her story (and excellent Irish mimicry) about the hardness of nuns resonated totally with me from school days.
Caught Mark Watson's show at the (other!) Assembly Rooms venue, which it seems accounts for the large number of confused latecomers. Very good it was too. Mark has this unique thing of observing the audience via pc onto a large screen as we all troup in unwittingly. As we sat down the audience were laughing at his latest observation 'the drought of bald men is now over' - but my other half took this quite well.... thankfully we didnt get chased up the aisle as others did when attempting to go to the toilet nor were we kidnapped from the courtyard to come in and fill the seats on the last night of the show.
You can read and view more about the TV festival at :
http://www.mgeitf.co.uk/home/mgeitf.aspx