Members of the Indie club took the opportunity to hear from (and fire questions at!) Richard Deverell, Head of Operations at BBC North, previously Head of Children’s, as he updated members on the latest BBC North/MediaCity news on Wednesday the 19th May at the Malmaison Hotel.
Richard told a 'full house' about BBC plans to have a more 'open' site than currently exists at Television Centre and answered questions from the group on a variety of subjects, including recruitment plans (the BBC aims to move two thirds of its existing teams across Childrens, Sport, Five Live, Learning and Religion) to recruit locally the remaining one third, which would provide opportunities for local freelancers.
BBC plans to utilise 30% of the office space at Media City and 40% of the studio space and looks forward to being part of a genuine 'media hub', with BBC production commencing from May 2011.
Richard mentioned BBC working with the screen agencies on training and other industry initiatives and even agreed to help indies access commissioners in genres where they won't be northern based (for example Factual) as well as where they already have a northern presence (comedy). BTW - Access to comedy commissioners is imminent at Vision and Media, with a Meet The Commissioner event planned for 16th June 2010.
SumTalent helped ensure the wine flowed during the pre and post event networking. This was my first Indie Club experience and it was great to see everyone and catch up. Enjoyed chatting to Richard Macer about his Behind the Scenes at the Museums project, which aired on BBC4 this week (much less gentle goings on than one might think!)
Next Indie Club meeting is scheduled in June - most likely date is 17th, more details will come from Cat Lewis closer to the date.
