As a fairly young company which started from scratch less than three years ago, RDF Television West (RDF West) now has a 40-strong team based out of Regent House in Clifton in Bristol. The company has had both a successful and exciting year.

“You go through stages,” says Head of Programmes Mark Hill. “The first couple of years were about working to get enough commissions to really get us going and the last 12 months have seen us working to retain and strengthen our umbrella of returning series.”

The company has also been exploring new sectors and looking at ways of diversifying its offering. “We’ve stuck to our core strengths, but are making sure we diversify across broadcasters and factual and entertainment genres. Our ambition is to build a broad-based production company, so we are not dependent on one broadcaster, genre, series etc.”

One key development has been the relationship with Channel 4. Hill says: “Bristol’s broadcast sector has many strengths – but traditionally it has not been a big volume supplier to Channel 4. We felt there was an opportunity to grow more programming for it in Bristol, especially as it needs to commission more out of London generally.”

This year RDF West has produced 50 hours of programming for Channel 4. “This is good news for us, but also for Bristol, as it makes it more confident in commissioning out of Bristol generally.” RDF West’s three main series for the Channel are Scrapheap Challenge, Wife Swap and The Secret Millionaire. This year has seen RDF West tasked with completely reinventing the Scrapheap Challenge brand and producing over 20 hours of new shows with new presenter Dick Strawbridge. As for Wife Swap, this is arguably RDF’s biggest selling international series and is currently jointly produced between RDF Television based in London and RDF West, but Hill says if the series comes back later this year, it will be produced solely out of Bristol. In a similar move, The Secret Millionaire, again currently produced out of both London and Bristol, has just been re-commissioned for a fourth series which will now be produced in Bristol.

Other significant happenings this year have included a two year deal with ITV for RDF to produce Dickinson’s Real Deal with David Dickinson, which has been a massive success for ITV and turned around their afternoon schedule. RDF are producing 160 hours of the show over its two year run which began in late 2007. Other productions for ITV include two 40-part series of Rosemary Shrager’s School for Cooks and the creation of a brand with ITV called The Truth About…

On the BBC front, RDF has made a 20-part food series, Eating With The Enemy with chef James Martin, which has also gone on to have a run on UKTV. They have also produced three series of the popular Oz Clarke and James May series Oz & James for BBC2. The most recent series, Oz & James Drink To Britain, has been one of BBC2’s most successful series this year, with audiences averaging over three million with a fourth series and Christmas special now being planned.

Awards over the last 12 months include a regional RTS for Oz & James and a BAFTA nomination for The Secret Millionaire.

RDF West has made a number of key appointments in the last 12 months. These include Jane Lomas who joined from Diverse in May 2008 as Executive Producer and has been looking after Wife Swap and Scrapheap Challenge. Serena Kennedy also joined in May 2008 from Maverick and has been appointed as Head of Production. The team has also seen the appointment of two highly experienced Production Executives – Julia Hunt from Endemol and Emma Dowley from RDF in London. Last year also saw RDF participate in a one-year trainee scheme funded by South West Screen that saw them take on trainees for three months with Two Four, the BBC and Films at 59 in an effort to provide fast-track industry experience.

Looking forward to the year ahead, Hill says: “We will be looking to build on our existing broadcaster and commissioner relationships and will also be looking to expand to work with Sky and Five. The independent production industry is facing a difficult and challenging time, but broadcasters need to keep commissioning and we have to keep our confidence in our abilities. You have to be able to diversify or specialise to survive.”