Get Interesting Stories onto TV – Making Documentaries with a Difference.

Making TV is all about creativity – plus someone who can organise the ideas and put the practicalities into place to get it to screen – not all creatives can do that. Those that struggle with the practical need to join forces with a business-minded friend/colleague. Anyway the marriage of creativity and business is a

How to Get a TV Exec to Commission Your Reality TV Idea

I get a lot of questions about how to pitch new television programme ideas so when Mark Marinaccio got in touch to ask if we’d like some information on pitching reality TV ideas, I grabbed the opportunity to pass on the benefit of his experience. Mark Marinaccio is an Executive Producer, Creator and Showrunner (American

TV Producers: WIN Cash to Develop & Pitch your Factual Series Idea

Are you a a television producer with a strong idea that just know would make a wonderful  factual series with global appeal?  Then this may be of interest to you – a chance to win £2500 towards developing and pitching it. There is only a week left until the deadline for your initial pitch document so you’d have to put your

Samantha Brick and a Tale of Shoddy Journalism

Samantha Brick, TV producer and journalist, writes a feature for the Daily Mail entitled ‘Why Do Women Hate Me For Being Beautiful?’ A headline ideally suited to the Daily Mail agenda. It’s easy journalism too – write about yourself and there’s no need to do any research for the story. Some deemed it a journalistic

How to Find a Good Story – & Get It on TV

Good television is all about finding – and telling – good stories. Apart from understanding the art of making video you also need to develop good writing skills for many jobs in television. Our last post focused on excellent advice from an experienced  TV screenwriter but what about the factual entertainment side of TV production?  Many factual and multi-item TV programmes eat

How to Write a Television Brief & More

Barney Newman worked his way from television  researcher to producer in entertainment and factual entertainment programming. He is ideally placed to talk about the responsibilities and duties that researchers and assistant producers are required to perform. His last post explained the difference between the two roles (you can read that here: http://wanttoworkintelevision/from-tv-researcher-to-assistant-producer/), Now Barney gets into the detail of the jobs: Compiling Celebrity and Production Item Briefs

So you want to work on the news desk?

Natalie Lisbona is one of the best news producers I’ve had the pleasure of working with, although I’ve never worked in television news. Many television magazine shows, and of course the topical and current affairs series, employ news producers to research, cast and find strong current news stories. When a major story breaks you need