Two of the UK’s most well-known names in TV production arm making a podcast about the biz.
Peter Fincham and Jimmy Mulville will front ten-part series Insiders: The TV Podcast, in which they promise to take “enthusiast and industry insiders alike” an “exclusive peek behind the curtain of the world of television.” Fincham’s indie, Expectation, is producing.
Each week, the pair, who bills themselves as “fierce friends and former rival TV bosses,” will deliver “personal stories, insider anecdotes and expert analysis on trends, triumphs and controversies that have shaped television over the decades and today.”
Fincham has been a commissioner and producer for the likes of Talkback throughout a four decade-year career. He began at Talkback in 1985, becoming its Managing Director a year later and exec producing the likes of The Day Today, I’m Alan Partridge and Never Mind the Buzzcocks for BBC Two, and Smack the Pony, Da Ali G Show and Brass Eye for Channel 4. Talkback sold to Fremantle (then Pearson Television) and Fincham became CEO of Talkback Thames, which made comedies and the likes of The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent for ITV and long-running police drama The Bill.
He went on to become Controller of BBC One, ordering the likes of How to Solve a Problem Like Maria?, and Director of Television at ITV, where he commissioned Downton Abbey and Broadchurch among others, before exiting in 2016 and a year later launched Expectation with former Endemol Shine Group boss Tim Hincks, where they have made the likes of Clarkson’s Farm and Alma’s Not Normal.
Mulville, arguably the most well-known indie producer in British TV, co-founded Hat Trick Productions in 1986 and has made a list of shows since then including Have I Got News For You, which is currently in its 69th season, Father Ted, Derry Girls, Outnumbered and Episodes. In the U.S., he launched Whose Line is it Anyway on ABC in 1997. He famously once tried to buy BBC Three when plans to switch it online-only caused uproar in the UK production sector.
“In our new podcast you can expect to hear all the things you won’t get to read about in Broadcast magazine,” said Fincham. “I’m looking forward to dissecting the state of the industry each week with him as well as sharing our own experiences of working in television. In short, we’re going to get to together once a week to gossip!”
“They say there are two things you don’t want to see being made – sausages and television,” added Mulville. Well Peter Fincham and I have seen how lots of TV is made and we still love it and love to talk about it. We’ve also love sausages but we won’t be talking about them. Tune in and hear what TV is like from the inside.”
Episodes will drop every Friday, with the first launching today.
