RTS London Podcast

"It’s 12 noon in London, 7am in Philadelphia... And around the world, it’s time for Live Aid..." On the 38th anniversary of Live Aid on 13 July 1985, RTS London presents this wide-ranging, full-length interview with Harvey Goldsmith CBE by broadcaster Andrew Eborn. Harvey Goldsmith is an iconic and visionary figure known for his exceptional work as a producer and promoter of rock concert...

When it comes to game shows and reality TV formats, taking a popular series from one country and making a new version is fairly easy. But remaking scripted formats has always been a harder nut to crack.  From homegrown hits Doctor Foster and Liar to global phenomena like Call My Agent! and Skam , scripted formats are traveling further than ever. With streaming services battling for more localised...

RTS London marks the BBC's centenary with a look at the BBC's history, the celebrations planned and the inspiration for the next generation. Created 100 years ago, on 18th October 1922, the BBC transformed people's lives at the turn of a dial, bringing voices out of the ether and conjuring up the magic community of radio. The TV services followed and now, many aspects of our lives a...

How do you produce a live topical Sunday morning discussion show out of Northern Ireland, with a studio in London and support from teams across the UK? The BBC recently awarded the tender to produce Sunday Morning Live, its flagship BBC One religious and current affairs discussion programme, to Tern TV and Green Inc, two companies working together to make this important commission from Northern Ir...

Starring Emmy-nominated Carice van Houten (Game of Thrones, The Fifth Estate, Race) and Golden Calf winner Halina Reijn (Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, Black Book, Valkyrie, Instinct), Red Light is an immersive thriller that portrays how three women's lives unexpectedly intersect when a well-known philosophy professor suddenly goes missing. Sylvia (van Houten), an aging sex worker, runs a brothel wi...

What’s next for the future of content? Bring yourself up-to-date with news from the world's leading media, entertainment and technology show.  For those who weren't able to attend this year's show held 9-12th September, this panel discussion, co-hosted with the IET, is the next best thing. It promises to be an informative and lively discussion on the key trends, products and researc...

Professor Brian Cox fulfils a childhood dream:  Back in 1980 twelve-year-old Brian Cox wrote to NASA asking for photos from some of their missions to the planets. The images they sent him from Voyager and the Viking mission to Mars inspired him to become the physicist he is today. Now watch as he has the chance to visit NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab to witness the workings of the Mars mission as it gu...

Join RTS London for this exclusive in-person Q&A of Walter Presents’ new crime drama Snow Angels (Snöänglar) — a daring character-driven crime drama about motherhood as three women — a mother, a policewoman, and a child nurse’s — fates become intertwined following the disappearance of a 5-week-old infant. Panel: Mette Heeno , Creator and Writer Anna Zackrisson , Co-Creator and Director Josefin...

Virtual Christmas Lecture by Dame Esther Rantzen DBE followed by Q&A hosted by Paul Jackson . Dame Esther Rantzen is a legend of British broadcasting and became a household name appearing in more than 2,000 TV programmes including documentaries, talk shows, reality shows and quizzes; most notably presenting the BBC’s “That's Life!” for 21 years, from 1973 until 1994. A creative producer a...

RTS London and RTS Scotland come together to proudly present a virtual panel discussion on the importance of sustainability and how it's currently implemented in the world of television.  Fresh in the minds of many following the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow this November, the session will look at both the making of and the consumption of TV — from production level to the digital fo...

How has COVID-19 impacted children’s media consumption and the content created in response? In January 2020, we held a joint event with the Children’s Media Foundation: “Are the Kids Alright?” The session looked at how the mainstream media were providing engaging content for our youngest audiences. Then the pandemic changed everything. How did the media industry rise to the challenge? RTS London a...

Challenging the Status Quo — Production, Mental Health & Neurodiversity With nine in 10 people working in the UK’s film and TV industries experiencing mental health issues*, something needs to change. The Film and TV industry is full of amazingly talented and skilled professionals working hard to provide content to people's screens. However, it is not all sunshine and rainbows. In recent...

This exclusive look at Walter Presents’ compelling new drama series, asking the question: can whistleblowers ever win?  Inspired by the true stories of Norwegian corporate whistleblowers, Heksejakt (Witch Hunt) looks at how those fighting for justice often become targets themselves. Following an exclusive virtual screening of episode one, series co-creators Anna Bache-Wiig and Siv Rajendram Eliass...

As we approach the twentieth anniversary of the four plane tragedies of 11th September 2001, this event looks behind the scenes of the moving two-hour documentary transmitting on Channel 4, which follows six children born after their fathers died on that day. On 11th September 2001, many children lost their parents, with over 100 born after their fathers’ deaths on that fateful day. Children of 9/...

Skewering the politicians and celebrities who need it the most! Join the Spitting Image team for a look behind the revival of this bitingly funny sketch show. Described as “one of the most innovative and daring television programmes ever conceived” by the BFI, Spitting Image was first broadcast on ITV all the way back in 1984 and continued to mercilessly caricature the great and the good of Britis...

Join the stellar production team behind Small Axe for a look at the love letters to resilience and triumph within London's West Indian community. Small Axe has been one of the most talked about drama series of recent years. Sharing the untold challenges and triumphs of London's West Indian community in such a truly authentic way has been a major cultural eye opener to the world and to th...

How the Creative Industries Embraced Live Streaming. Is streaming coming to the rescue of the creative industries?  The music sector is using live streaming to create high-quality Pay Per View concerts, with theatre also getting in on the streaming act. In this session we take a look at the emerging business models based around live streaming with some of the industry’s top experts and practitione...

Anna and Jörg Winger in conversation with Stephen Armstrong. Anna and Jörg discuss concluding the UK's highest-rated foreign-language drama after three series. Featuring a special introduction by Walter Presents Chief Creative Officer Walter Iuzzolino . With Deutschland 89, Anna and Jörg Winger conclude their Emmy Award winning 80s set political drama which has explored the fraught system tha...

TikTok has become one of the most talked-about social media launches of recent years, but producers and broadcasters are still in the dark on how best to navigate it.  TikTok has grown as a major cultural force over the past 18 months, spawning countless memes, trends and cultural moments that have set the Internet ablaze, along with launching direct on Samsung Smart TVs. With household names from...

Are we on the verge of having too much TV?   With soaring investment in production from the streamers and American imports alongside the UK’s PSBs, it looks like we are entering a golden age of TV — particularly with drama.    However, the fragmentation of platforms to view much of this content is making it harder for viewers to easily find what they want to watch.    Is the streaming market becom...

How Legal and Commercial Teams Have Responded to Covid-19. COVID-19 has impacted the television industry in an unprecedented way, from gaps in programming, productions halted, and the enforcement of legal provisions rarely used.  Legal and commercial teams from across the UK’s top broadcasters and content studios have had to be creative in how they operate to keep programming on our screens and pr...

David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed in conversation with Boyd Hilton.  The stars and creator of Intelligence discuss how season 2 was made and how they juggled their multifarious actor, producer and writer roles in this RTS London production focus event. Created by Nick Mohammed, Intelligence is a workplace comedy set in the UK’s GCHQ—a kind of weedier, geekier version of MI5, where they tackle inte...

Gaby Roslin chats with the team behind Ashley Banjo’s heart-warming, and Broadcast Award nominated, Flirty Dancing Second Star Production’s successful hybrid reality dating show Flirty Dancing has two seasons under its belt; they share their insights and experiences behind this refreshingly new dating show format. Two strangers rehearse a dance separately with members of Diversity, Ashley Banjo’s...

This year has been a tipping point for our industry, partly because of COVID-19. Early in the last decade, a tsunami in Japan devastated the factory that supplied HDCAM-SR tapes - the format used to deliver most TV programmes. As people sought an alternative, the uptake of file-based production was accelerated. An informal organisation was formed - called the Digital Production Partnership - that...

Whether you’re a big streamer, a start-up streamer or a consumer, this session examines how to survive... and more importantly... stand out. Join an all-star panel led by journalist and presenter Nadine Dereza as they look at some of the best in class OTT offerings from the worlds of ad-supported streaming, niche content, and multi-service aggregation.  Chair: Nadine Dereza , Journalist and Presen...