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David Mortimer has been promoted at Stv Studios as the Criminal Record producer predicts “strong H2 profitability.”

Mortimer has risen from MD to CEO of Stv Studios, coming a few days after ex-ITV exec Rufus Radcliffe was revealed to be taking over as CEO of Stv from Simon Pitts, who will stand down next month.

The news about Mortimer’s promotion comes as Stv, which is a public company, revealed solid half-year results for the first six months of 2024. Stv, which incorporates linear channels, streaming and Stv Studios, saw turnover rise 20% to £75.3M ($98.9M) while adjusted operating profit was up by one third to £10.6M.

Stv Studios, meanwhile, saw a 38% boost in revenue to £37.5M. Stv said it is “on track” to deliver on the target of doubling Studios revenue to £140M by the end of 2026 with a 10% margin. While its operating profit was just £0.1M, the company blamed...

The man who oversaw the relaunch of ITV’s streaming service will lead Scotland’s Stv as CEO.

Rufus Radcliffe has been appointed to succeed Simon Pitts, who was named Chief Executive at British media firm Global earlier this year. Pitts exits on October 31 and Radcliffe will become Stv Group boss a day later.

Radcliffe exited ITV, where he was a member of the UK commercial network’s Executive Committee, in April after 13 years. He has most recently been Managing Director of Streaming, Interactive and Data, playing a major role in ITV’s shift from linear broadcasting to digital, in particular overseeing the launch of streamer Itvx. He had also previously been Chief Marketing Officer, helping to launch BritBox.

ITV and Stv have a uniquely close relationship, with the latter being the former’s franchise licensee in Scotland. In practice, this means most of ITV’s biggest shows such as...

Exclusive: The race to replace Ralph Lee at the helm of BBC Studios Productions is underway, with the studio signaling its ambition by approaching some of the UK’s top unscripted executives.

Lee will step down as the CEO of BBC Studios Productions next month after a six-year stint to “pursue a new challenge” but Deadline is told that headhunter Russell Reynolds Associates is already scoping out successors.

The successful candidate will run a production unit that contributed heavily to BBC Studios’ £1.6B ($2B) content revenue last year, overseeing hits including Good Omens, Strictly Come Dancing, and David Attenborough’s natural history tentpoles.

Deadline understands that Russell Reynolds has held tentative early conversations with potential candidates including Stv Studios managing director David Mortimer, ITV Studios unscripted director Angela Jain and Karl Warner, Channel 4’s outgoing head of youth and digital.

Fatima Salaria, who previously ran The Apprentice producer Naked,...

Stv boss Simon Pitts has unveiled his new gig just a day after announcing he was leaving the Scottish broadcaster-producer.

Pitts is moving to British media and entertainment giant Global, where he will replace Stephen Miron in around a year’s time as Global Group CEO. Miron announced last week that he is stepping down after 16 years and will become chairman of the group.

Pitts has been CEO of Stv for six years, overseeing a period of growth during which the outfit has navigated choppy waters and has seen its production arm make hits including Apple TV+’s Criminal Record.

“Simon joins Global with an incredible track record of leadership, growth, and transformation,” said Global Founder Ashley Tabor-King. “At Stv he has led a hugely successful transformation, diversifying revenues and business operations to now include a high-growth streaming service and leading studios group alongside a traditional linear broadcast business, all...

Stv boss Simon Pitts is exiting the business after six years.

Pitts has led the Scottish broadcaster-producer since 2018, during what has been a tricky period beset by the Covid-19 pandemic and ad recession. He has, nonetheless, delivered growth and seen a boost in production arm Stv Studios, which is now making big budget shows such as Apple TV+’s Criminal Record.

He will take up a new role in a year’s time and remain with the Scottish outfit until then while the board appoints a successor.

“Simon has been an outstanding leader of Stv over the past six years,” said Chairman Paul Reynolds. “As the architect of our diversification strategy, he has successfully led the transformation of Stv from a linear broadcaster into a resilient content creation and digital streaming business with an exciting future.”

Pitts added: “With Stv’s latest diversification targets fully achieved, now is the right...

Exclusive: Yesterday, Scotland’s Stv confirmed one of the bigger deals in UK television so far this year when it announced the acquisition of indie production network Greenbird Media.

We’d already revealed news of an imminent deal and a stock market announcement confirmed commercial network Stv had paid an initial £21.4M ($25.1M) for the indie, which houses 14 production companies through an innovative incubation model aimed at nurturing emerging producers.

The deal saw previous majority owner Keshet exit and Greenbird management sell their shares to give Stv’s production arm, Stv Studios, 100% of the business. It’s understood there was a competitive tender for the London-based company, which is run by British television industry veterans Jamie Munro and Stuart Mullin.

We’ve now spoken to Stv CEO Simon Pitts, who outlined in more detail the strategic reasoning behind the Greenbird deal, noting how it supercharges a strategic objective to turn...

Stv has confirmed the acquisition of Lego Masters firm Greenbird Media, following Deadline’s exclusive report yesterday in the UK.

The Scottish network’s production arm, Stv Studios, has paid an initial £21.4M ($27.2M) for the company, whose assets include majority stakes in Lego Masters maker Tuesday’s Child Television and Crackit Productions. Israel’s Keshet International was previously the majority owner, with a 60% stake.

Yesterday, we told you Stv was nearing a deal for Greenbird, whose sale has been in the works since last year.

The deal boosts the number of labels within Stv Studios from nine to 24, as it aims to become the UK’s top producer from outside of London — a sector known within the country’s TV sector as the nations and regions. Stv will get new bases in Glasgow and London, and offices in Cardiff, Belfast, Brighton and Manchester.

Greenbird founders Jamie Munro and Stuart...

BBC World Service today (25 April) announces the launch of Fukushima, a new seven-part drama series exploring the 2011 nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan.

In March 2011, the largest earthquake ever recorded in Japan’s history triggered a tsunami which sent five to ten metre waves into coastal towns and cities, killing thousands.

Water barrelled over the seawall protecting the Fukushima nuclear power plant, flooding its basements and cutting power. It led to the world’s most severe nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

The stricken power plant became a ticking timebomb, a threat to life in Japan and beyond. As the energy company and politicians in Tokyo lost control, the reactors became unstable and a “suicide squad” of older workers was sent inside.

Akiko is a journalism student who, 10 years after the disaster, goes in search of the story behind the headlines, of how it unfolded and the consequences for the country.

The heads of the U.K. public service broadcasters (PSBs) are in agreement that the market is undergoing seismic changes and evolution is the way forward.

“There’ll be huge changes going on in this market and we underestimate it at our peril,” said Tim Davie, director general of the BBC. “We’ve got to innovate, innovate, keep innovating. And I think any complacency is always going to end in serious consequences.”

Davie was speaking at a high-powered panel on PSBs at the the Deloitte and Enders Media and Telecoms conference in London on Thursday, alongside Channel 4 CEO Alex Mahon, Stv CEO Simon Pitts, ITV chief executive Carolyn McCall and Maria Kyriacou, U.K., Canada, Israel and Australia president of Paramount, which owns broadcaster Channel 5.

Davie said that the U.K. market is undergoing a transition with a large segment of the audience, not just the youth, increasingly...

ITV boss Carolyn McCall has raised concerns that the British cost of living crisis could start hampering broadcaster revenues at a time when they are emerging from the pandemic, while BBC Director General Tim Davie warned against “complacency” over changing audience habits.

ITV’s main source of income is advertising but this income is “heavily tied to the economy,” according to McCall, who said a “gloomy” period could impact the network’s revenues.

She was speaking at the Deloitte and Enders Media and Telecoms Conference a day after ITV unveiled strong Q1 results and several weeks after it posted record ad revenues for full year 2021.

The UK is currently in the midst of a major cost of living crisis, with energy and gas bills soaring and serious concerns being raised by businesses over the knock-on effect this will have on the economy.

Although raising the cost-of-living concerns, she countered that...

The big UK networks can use their different programming strengths to reach audiences with the same climate change message, according to the bosses of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky.

Speaking during a panel session at today’s Cop 26, C4 CEO Alex Mahon said that, having “cleaned up our organisations” over the past decade in terms of sustainability, the networks now have a “collective responsibility to influence the behaviour of the population.”

“We can all do it in our own way,” she added. “Channel 4’s Celebrity Trash Monsters recently did a climate challenge while ITV has power through soaps or quizzes. The onus is on us to get the messages agreed upon out there.”

Sky UK and Europe CEO Stephen van Rooyen said the networks can use their different strengths to “nudge audiences along,” pointing to the Comcast-owned pay-tv giant’s expertise in the sports arena as another example.

The bosses of all major UK broadcasters, Discovery UK and Sky have come together to sign a Climate Content Pledge at this week’s COP26, as they attempt to uproot their commissioning processes and teach audiences more about reaching net zero on greenhouse gases.

Twelve networks, which represent more than 70% of time UK audiences spend watching TV and film, have put their names to the pledge, as the CEOs of the major broadcasters appear in a panel session this morning at BBC Scotland.

The pledge reads:

We will reach more of our audiences with content that helps everyone understand and navigate the path to net zero, and inspires them to make greener choices. We will develop processes that help us to consider climate themes when we are commissioning, developing and producing content. We will ensure that our efforts are informed by the science. We will recognise the importance of fair...

Demands for change and representation across the U.K.’s film and TV industry are being heard loud and clear, and opening doors and dialogue with the BBC, Netflix, Amazon, Working Title and Film 4.

As revealed by Variety, a recent open letter signed by more than 5,000 members of the U.K. industry called on gatekeepers to make “strategic commitments” to reshape the landscape and improve representation. It appears some of these gatekeepers have begun listening.

Nisha Parti, producer of “The Boy with the Topknot” and one of the organizers of the letter, tells Variety that the initiative garnered an “overwhelmingly positive response” across the industry, and calls have so far been arranged with the likes of BBC director of content Charlotte Moore and drama boss Piers Wenger, Film 4, Netflix, Working Title, and more.

“I feel really optimistic that the industry wants to help and that they are talking to me,...

The door slams shut today on applications for one of the biggest jobs in global broadcasting: running the BBC. Resumes have been dusted off and the BBC’s headhunters have been courting interest as the corporation seeks to replace Tony Hall as director general after he announced his departure in January.

It’s not been the most electrifying of races to date, with a number of industry insiders observing that the recruitment process has been quiet. There have been no shock candidates, no big pitches for the job. But that could all change in an instant as the BBC chairman Sir David Clementi edges closer to a decision.

Hall’s successor faces a gargantuan task. The to-do list includes, but is not limited to: Grappling with a government that seems determined to undermine the BBC’s funding, slashing costs, securing the success of commercial arm BBC Studios, cleaning up a rumbling equal pay dispute,...

Exclusive: David Mortimer, content chief at Tinopolis Group, which owns American Ninja Warrior producer A. Smith & Co and Nailed It! producer Magical Elves, is leaving the company.

I hear that the former NBC Universal exec has scored a high-profile new job at Scottish broadcaster Stv. Mortimer is set to become content chief at Scottish broadcaster Stv’s production division. As MD of Stv Productions, he will oversee the company’s growth strategy and build on hit formats such as Antiques Road Trip, Celebrity Antiques Road Trip and Catchphrase.

He will be London-based and will work closely with recently installed CEO Simon Pitts, who in May, unveiled a three-year growth strategy that includes investment in production, the launch of a new formats unit and new digital team.

The company said that it wanted to rebrand its production arm to “focus exclusively on developing returning series for both terrestrial and Svod players...

Ron Howard teamed up with longtime collaborator Brian Grazer and Discovery Communications back in 2014 to launch a digital studio to produce programming for the newfangled digital media and distribution markets. They aptly called the new company New Form Digital and started with $5 million in the bank from the aforementioned Discovery and other Hollywood notables, like Imagine co-chairman Michael Rosenberg, attorney Craig Jacobson, former Tribune Broadcasting president Ed Wilson, former William Morris CEO Jim Wiatt, and CAA.

The company’s done a lot in the two-and-half years since, including most recently receiving and influx of cash.

New Form just announced today an $18 million Series B Funding Round from ITV and Discovery, the former of which will also be an important strategic partner for the studio's growth.

“New Form's hit rate has been very impressive since launching only two years ago and they are a great fit for ITV Studios and our Ott service,...

Britain's Royal Television Society, which represents major television execs, has appointed Virgin Media CEO Tom Mockridge as chair of its new board of trustees. He'll succeed ITN CEO John Hardie, who has reached the end of his term. Rts has also appointed Simon Pitts as its new vice chair. He's managing director of online, pay TV and interactive & technology at ITV and will take over from Tim Davie, CEO of BBC Worldwide and Director, Global. Davie will remain on the board…...

ITV has its eyes on web video, and with its latest investment, it has joined forces with a network aimed at young mothers. The British broadcaster has picked up a minority stake in Channel Mum, a UK-based company that features insights from videomaking moms.

Channel Mum, which first launched at the beginning of 2015, is run by parenting website Netmums and features an online home for the native Internet users who are now having kids of their own. “YouTube is growing up, and the millennials are growing up too,” Channel Mum founder Siobhan Freegard told The Guardian at the time of her network’s launch. “There are a huge number of new mums in this category, and at least the middle and younger of them are the YouTube generation, while the older ones are coming to it.”

ITV’s investment will assist Channel Mum’s growth, which has recently included a number of brand partnerships.