Advanced Television

Normal People

Study: ‘More enlightened’ TV portrayals of sex welcomed

Viewers feel that the portrayal of sex and sexual relationships in programmes has improved and modernised, according to Ofcom’s latest study into audience attitudes towards sex and violence on television. Participants in the research generally consider that the level of sexual content on TV has remained high but steady in recent years. But many viewers […]

October 31, 2023By Colin Mann

Element Pictures hires Aird

International production company Element Pictures (a Fremantle company) the producer behind hit series Normal People, Conversations with Friends, and Oscar-winning films The Favourite and Room, has expanded their creative team with the appointment of Christopher Aird as Creative Director. Aird was appointed to the role by Element Pictures’ Founders and Co-CEOs Ed Guiney and Andrew […]

October 12, 2022

Conversation with Friends debuts in May on BBC Three, iPlayer

The BBC has has announced that Conversation with Friends will air on May 15th on BBC Three with all episodes additionally available that day through the BBC iPlayer. Conversations with Friends follows Frances (Alison Oliver), a 21 year old college student, as she navigates a series of relationships that force her to confront her own […]

April 12, 2022By Nik Roseveare

BBC receives 104 BAFTA nominations

Nominations for the BAFTA Television Awards and Television Craft Awards have been announced, with the BBC securing 104 in total, 59 for Television and 45 for Craft. Charlotte Moore, Chief Content Officer, said: “This is a great year for BBC television, the huge spread of BAFTA nominations reflects the incredible range and quality of genre […]

April 29, 2021

TV and streaming nominations for 2021 BPG Awards revealed

Three BBC dramas – Normal People, Small Axe and I May Destroy You – lead the nominations for this year’s Broadcasting Press Guild TV and Streaming Awards, alongside two ITV dramas, Des and Quiz. Normal People is shortlisted as Best Drama Series (5+ episodes), and its stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal are nominated as […]

February 18, 2021

iPlayer: Record-breaking start to 2021

The start of 2021 has seen viewing surge on BBC iPlayer, with the first full week (January 4th– 10th) breaking records as viewers streamed 162 million programmes – as they flocked to watch programmes such as The Serpent, A Perfect Planet, Traces and EastEnders on iPlayer. That week also saw a record 4.1 million people […]

January 19, 2021

BBC iPlayer exceeds 5bn annual requests

This year there have been 5.3 billion requests to stream content on the BBC iPlayer service across January to November, 33 per cent ahead of the same period last year, and already 850 million requests higher than the whole of 2019. Killing Eve has once again been a huge hit, with nearly 40 million requests […]

December 8, 2020

Record listening figures for BBC Sounds

Grounded with Louis Theroux was the most popular podcast for BBC Sounds during a record period between April-June 2020, which saw 313 million plays of all content across radio, podcasts and music mixes. Other top podcasts include That Peter Crouch Podcast, The Coronavirus Newscast, Match of the Day: Top 10 and Fortunately with… Fi and […]

August 10, 2020

Ofcom: Lockdown doubles SVoD screen time

A surge in screen time during lockdown saw UK adults spend 40 per cent of their waking day watching TV and online video services, broadcast regulator Ofcom has found in its annual study of the nation’s media habits. People spend

August 5, 2020

iPlayer requests up 47%

A record-breaking number of viewers turned to BBC iPlayer in the first half of 2020, with 3.1 billion requests to stream programmes, up by 47 per cent on the previous year. April-June also marks a new best-ever quarter for iPlayer with 1.6 billion requests, an increase of more than half (59 per cent) on the […]

August 5, 2020