Latest Post

In: Ben Hall, MD Shine Network

Ben Hall has been appointed as MD of Shine’s internal “centralised incubation and information hub for the development and fast-tracking of group formats” called Shine Network. He joins the London office from Digital Rights Group where he was Chief Creative Officer. He was previously Head of Creative at BBC Worldwide. Source: C21

Featured Post

The Best Selling Factual TV Shows in the World (That You’ve Probably Never Heard Of)

These days it's not enough to come up with a factual TV show that gets commissioned by one TV channel - in order to make money you'll need to be able to sell it around the world too. And that means knowing what will sell in the global market. As a rule of thumb, in order for documentaries to be successful around the world they need to stay away from parochial, local subjects and concentrate on themes that people can identify with wherever they are in the world: March of the Penguins (survival against the odds); Touching the Void (friendship/human spirit); Blue Planet (the wonder of nature); The Apprentice (the American dream/ rivalry). Formats also need to deal with universal themes, but they can be tweaked to suit the local market. You'll no doubt be familiar with the likes of Who Want's to Be a Millionaire? (sold to 100+ territories), Idol (40+ territories), Dancing with the Stars (30+ territories) and Wife Swap (20+ territories). But, according to major distributors, there are a lot of best selling shows that might not be so familiar. Here is a list of some of the top sellers: (Photo by: JasonRogersFooDogGiraffeBee)

be inspired

• AJ Jacobs is an immersive, experimental kind of journalist and best selling author (one has led to the other).  In 1997 he published The Year of Living Biblically, which is notable not only for reaching the NYT best seller list, but also because it featured in evangelical magazine Relevant and in Penthouse. It also resulted in an enormous beard and a baby. In September 2009 he publishes The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment, which chronicles his experiments in marital harmony, multitasking, nudity and outsourcing his life. He's currently working on a new book called  The Healthiest Human Being in the World - he investigates the meaning of 'healthy' whilst simultaneously trying to become it. Visit his blog to find out more. #
• "You are more likely to be killed in the line of duty working as a sanitation worker than you do as a police or fire officer," says Professor Robin Nagle, who is Anthropologist-in-Residence at the NYC Department of Sanitation. She teaches “Garbage in Gotham: the Anthropology of Trash,” at NYU and has been known to wear clothes pulled from the trash to give talks. She spent time working with the department of sanitation, learning how to drive a sanitation truck and discovered that trash is a valuable insight into modern culture. The sanitation workers can tell the demographics of city block by the trash the collect - who is an alcoholic, where the birth rate has gone up, whether the economy is doing well or badly; they can even tell whose marriage is in trouble. Read an interview in Slate.com Watch an interview with Prof. Nagle: #
• The UK’s best window dressers have just competed against each other at the In Store show at London's Olympia - each team had three hours to complete their perfect window. The winners were from Belfast store Avoca who staged a 'fantasy teatime' theme. Over in New York City, Housing Works Thrift Shops are famous for their stunning window designs - and all the more impressive for having to be designed from whatever donated items are in the store on the day.  Meet the team here. Check out some of their windows here and here and here. Watch a video of the Olympia competition: #
• Naum Gabo, a Russian-born sculptor, experimented with plastic in the 1920s; by the 1960s his sculptures were rotting. Gabo angrily blamed museum curators for not looking after his works adequately. But it turns out that the plastic - cellulose acetate - itself was unstable. Now museums around the world are seeing their collections crumble before their eyes - antique plastic dolls at the National Museum of Denmark are peeling and flake; furniture at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London looks weather-beaten; the first-ever plastic toothbrush, at the Smithsonian, is turning into a pile of crumbs - and no-one knows how to stop  the rot. Read the full article on Slate.com What other scientific advances and inventions have gone beyond their "Use by" date..? #
• The Musee du Quai Branly in Paris (which features arts and cultures of Africa, Asia and the Pacific),  has staged an exhibition about Tarzan. It's almost 100 years since Tarzan was born in 1912, and although the Edgar Rice Burroughs aren't as popular as they once were, Tarzan is still a familiar figure. The exhibition uses film archive, artwork, music and text to illustrate the character's influence and explores issues of race and sexuality. Read more on BBC News. It's left me feeling nostalgic for other classic 1970's summer holiday daytime viewing, such as: Champion the Wonder Horse (click on the link for the theme tune) Skippy the Bush Kangaroo Casey Jones Black Beauty Little House on the Prairie Please can someone do a season and bring them back? #