When the wedding of Jade Goody to Jack Tweed is screened by Living TV next month it will likely serve as a watershed in reality television. For reasons as tragic as they are remarkable, the former Big Brother contestant is the most famous cast member in the story of television, which, over the past decade, has been all about the reality genre.

While the stakes for those in the spotlight are high, budgets are low. Low budget TV is enjoying its day in the sun at a time when cashstrapped commercial broadcasters can’t really afford to show anything else.

ITV, once a televisual powerhouse, is desperate to cut costs and it is widely  accepted that the business models of both Channel 4 and five are in need of a radical overhaul. Meanwhile the BBC is under increasing pressure to curb spending despite the fact that it can rely on us, the licence fee payers.

Robin Ashbrook worked in entertainment programming for both the BBC and Granada before accepting an offer to be creative director of Elisabeth Murdoch’s Shine Limited.

Shine North in Whitworth Street, Manchester, produced more than 30 hours of television for the five terrestrial channels last year, the vast majority produced and filmed in our area. Key shows include two series of Battle of the Brains for BBC2 and Banged Up for five, which is nominated for an RTS award for best constructed documentary.

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