The REAL (Screen) Producers in DC

Pact and UKTI led a mission to Washington to join the best and brightest in reality and unscripted television industry to the (sold-out) 14th Annual RealScreen Summit. Washington is home to non-fiction powerhouses like Discovery Communications, The National Geographic Channel and PBS.

The eighteen companies who joined the UK Delegation to RealScreen offered a cross-section of the kinds of innovative producers that regularly cross the Atlantic in search of US networks to air their creations. Leeds-based Daisybeck Productions, for example, produced the NBCUniversal Emmy-nominated hit Too Fat for 15, which airs on the Style Network. And British TV producer Studio Lambert, now part of the global production and distribution group All3Media (another UK delegate), launched Undercover Boss on Channel 4 in the UK before CBS aired it in 2010.

The UK delegation kicked off with an exclusive dinner with commissioning and development executives.  The dinner was rumoured to be the 'hot ticket' of the week -  "The dinner was probably the best and most effective event of the conference. I sat next to two important commissioners who I’d never met before and I managed to enthuse them about one of our projects which we’re now having further discussions about. I also made another excellent contact at Discovery during the drinks before hand. Again I’m very optimistic where this might lead". Lambros Atteshlis, Glasshead Productions.

Britain certainly has got talent and we proved that yet again with projections of more than £5m set  to result from the UK mission guaranteeing that before the end of the year we will see many more British titles being awarded their US visas.