Southern Centre Committee 2011/12
Your Southern Centre Committee give up their own time to organise events in your area. The current committee is as follows:
Centre Officers:
Chair: Gordon Cooper - Bournemouth University
Gordon has been Head of BU Media Consulting at The Media School at Bournemouth University for the last four years. He is currently responsible for establishing the School's international media professional development courses.
Prior to his current role at Bournemouth University Gordon was involved in developing and teaching TV production at BU on a range of practice-based undergraduate and post-graduate courses. For the past five years he has been Chair of Wessex Media Group which has involved him in staging professional networking events and working with regional indie companies.
He is a former BBC staff producer with an established track record in writing and producing educational and factual programmes for broadcast TV and radio. He has also run his own independent production company and produced freelance features and documentary series for Radio 4.
Treasurer: Bob Sparks - Head of Media Projects & Engineering, Arqiva
Bob has been in the forefront of managing emerging technologies and technology change for over 20 years through various technical and senior management roles with ITN, Meridian Broadcasting, as Head of Technology, at ONdigital where he was Head of Engineering, Projects Director at Amethyst Consulting and Development Manager at BBC Broadcast. He has had personal experience of the introduction of new technologies from E.N.G. to HD and from analogue
to digital TV and radio services.
Bob is currently Broadcast Engineering Director at Arqiva where he leads a teams of system specialists and project managers responsible for the design and delivery of broadcast related
products and projects for the major broadcasters across a number of platforms from Digital Terrestrial Television; Digital Satellite; Analogue and Digital Radio; and mobile TV.
Bob is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology and Treasurer of the Royal Television Society Southern Centre.
Secretary: Mark Southgate
In his 22 years in television news, Mark has subbed, produced and edited programmes. Mark began his career on newspapers in Portsmouth and Wolverhampton before joining Central TV’s Nottingham newsroom. He then moved to TVS working on the Coast to Coast programme before helping to launch Meridian as Editor of the South-East Edition of Meridian Tonight.
Committee Members:
Jan Beal - Media Consultant
Jan Beal has 16 years experience of making programes across every genre within ITV, followed by 24 years of Programme and Broadcast Management. This has included; facilities and people scheduling, budget creation, monitoring and managing, planning, co-ordination and organisation from concept to transmission plus location, studio and post production expertise. Jan has also worked in the Independent Sector, working on contract and delivery/financial negotiations.
Jan's recent achievements include setting up kmb productions, and working with ITV Meridian on Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity – which involved the preparation of a top level plan for Meridian’s Head of Technical Operations. She has also undertaken work with Southampton Solent University as a project consultant on the creation of The Centre for Professional Development in Broadcasting and Multimedia Production.
In 2007 Jan undertook a special project for Skillset and was a Lead Assessor of one of two teams who visited Universities across the UK who had applied for Skillset Media Academy status.
Jan was formerly chair of the RTS Southern Centre, and received a special RTS award in 2010 for her outstanding contribution to the centre (see picture).
Kate Beal - Managing Director, Talent TV South
Kate Beal is the Managing Director of Talent TV South, formerly kmb productions, and now part of the Talent Group. Kate formed the company in March 2005 and since then has won twelve TV commissions and a number of online and corporate projects. Kate has exec produced programmes such as Vicars’ Wives for ITV1, By Royal Appointment for ITV1, The Krays By Fred Dinenage for the C&I Network and the Flying Winemakers for UKTV. Before Kate formed Talent South/kmb productions she was an ITV Series Producer / Director / AP with her favourite credits including The Real London’s Burning for five, That’s Esther for ITV1, Tested to Destruction for ITV1 and Faith and the City for ITV1. Now, Kate leads Talent South and a team of talented and very multi skilled individuals. She is always on the hunt for new ideas, new talent and people who are passionate about telling stories.
Robin Britton
Robin started in television in 1984 - and has worked in News, Sport and current affairs programming since then. He has launched three news operations, introduced digital production & workflow, overseen the launch of web and social media services and is an active member of ITV's diversity group. He is currently Head of News for ITV Meridian.
Katharine Duchesne
Katharine is a Director of Cloud One Television, a successful TV production company producing shows for BBC, ITV1, C4 and UKTV.
Recent credits include 'Hidden Paintings', 'History of the World in 100 Objects' and 'Word on the Street' for the BBC. Katharine originally trained as an anthropologist but joined the independent television sector eventually spending ten years at ITV series producing and directing programmes including 'Brush with the Wild', 'Bootsale Challenge' and 'Crimefighters'. Katharine combines her career spanning the genres of factual, fact ent, drama and commercials with her other job as a mother of three.
Trevor Hearing - Bournemouth University
Trevor Hearing is Subject Leader for Television Production at The Media School, Bournemouth University. He has been making broadcast programmes for 20 years as a cameraman, researcher, film researcher, producer, director, writer and executive producer, working on programmes for Tyne Tees Television, Border Television, London Weekend Television, BBC, and Channel Four.
As well as producing many regional programmes in Newcastle, his network credits have ranged from Harry Secombe's “Highway", to ITV's true-crime drama series "Crimestory". His experience stretches from producing live studio shows to documentary to drama: his company Studio Arts Television won the 1997 Royal Television Society North East award for Best Non-Factual Production for championing new writers with its drama series “Writing on The Edge”. Since 2000 he has developed his career as a university lecturer but still occasionally finds time to put a camera on his shoulder.
Jason Horton
Keith Lloyd - Broadcast Engineering Consultant
Keith has worked in the broadcasting industry for over forty years in transmission and studios. In studios he worked in engineering and sound operations. He became Head of Sound for an ITV company. He ended up as Head of Operations for a number of TV companies. He is currently doing consultancy work. He has been in the RTS since 1965 and has served on two centre committees.
Jonathan Marland - Executive Producer, ITV Meridian
Jonathan Marland has been a programme executive for ITV Meridian for the last eight years – overseeing the channel’s non-news output. He started as reporter in newspapers in Devon before moving onto local radio where he was News Editor for Invicta Radio in Kent, and then television, where he was news editor for TVS in the South East. He has worked for ITV Meridian in a number of roles – news reporter – current affairs producer – political producer – Editor Current Affairs and now Executive Producer.
Alison Martin - Freelance Producer
Alison trained as a journalist at ITN. She reported and presented for Meridian’s regional politics programme and ITV – "...on the day Diana, Princess of Wales died I was part of ITV’s presenting team tasked with telling the nation the terrible news."
A life on the road beckoned – Alison directed and produced some of the UK’s most interesting talent… Nick Knowles, Esther Rantzen, Heather Mills, and Edith Bowman to name a few. "Travelling the world, filming interesting people and telling their stories is a gift of a job. I was the first undercover filmmaker to take footage of professional marijuana growers in the New Zealand bush, I ran with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain and took a complete film crew to Florida to film a shuttle launch only to be told it was cancelled as we sat in the Departure lounge!"
After a stint as a Senior Producer at GMTV Alison switched to the BBC producing Watchdog and then Rogue Traders. "Whilst making Rogue I fell pregnant. I spent the nine months squeezing my bump into cramped vans as we filmed undercover. When it came to confronting the rogues I was ordered to stand behind a burly security guard!"
Alison was part of the start up team for the BBC’s flagship early evening magazine - The ONE Show where she was responsible for the topical and current affairs output. Now she freelances in TV and is developing her writing and presenting work.
Stuart Ray
Stuart is Course Leader for the Television Production scheme of degrees at Southampton Solent University. After graduating from Bournemouth University in the days when it wasn't a University he worked for a number of years in the corporate, promotional and sell through sector. He took up his first lecturing role in the West Midlands before becoming Head of Training and Production at Youth Culture Television, supporting young people's television and video production projects.
He has produced and directed a wide range of projects over the years, both broadcast and non-broadcast. He has been leading the Television Production team at Solent since 2007.
Chris Riley - Managing Director, Topical Television
Chris Riley is MD of Southampton-based Topical Television Ltd., which has produced over 1500 programmes on all the main networks - documentaries, factual entertainment, arts, science and current affairs. These include City Hospital BBC One’s long-running live hospital documentary, Real Rescues (BBC One) and feature strands for The One Show.
Chris’s own credits before starting Topical ranged from Editor of TV-am breakfast TV, to Producer of a variety of series including peak-time chat shows and events, the Booker Prize, Whodunit drama, Watchdog, current affairs and entertainment.
Natalie Wilkinson
Peter Wright - Managing Director, Amcro Technology Ltd.
Peter has been involved with electronic design for the broadcast industry for over 30 years, having had particular experience with both studio cameras and Grade 1 picture monitors. He has been involved more recently with broadcast automation systems, and currently runs his own electronic design business, based near Andover. He has been a member of the RTS Southern Centre since 1972, and has previously served on the committee. Peter is the centre's webmaster.