TV Programmes PR
TV Programmes PR
Connor PR working with Middlechild and GroupM Entertainment production on a new programme for Channel 5 ‘ The Dog Rescuers’
The Dog Rescuers
The Dog Rescuers
Coming soon to Channel 5, “The Dog Rescuers” a Middlechild and GroupM Entertainment production that follows the canine rescue work of the RSPCA across England and Wales.
With over 1.3 million reports of cruelty and mistreatment of animals made to the RSPCA every year, the charity is under increasing pressure to safeguard our nation’s pets from the constant threat of abusive owners and unscrupulous breeders. This series follows those inspectors and officers that deal with ensuring man’s best friend is being properly treated. Using the latest forensic technologies and good old fashioned leg work, the series follows the RSPCA inspectors as they track down and rescue some of the 150,000 animals which are abused and mistreated in the UK every year, and witnesses the struggle to rehabilitate the victimised animals and to prosecute the offenders.
Channel 5 gained access to a selected group of the RSPCA’s 350 inspectors across the country for four months, and our cameras followed inspectors investigating crimes of abuse against dogs and puppies in rural areas and inner cities, as poor living conditions, malnutrition, illegal mass-breeding, organised fights are eradicated all in the aid of saving dogs’ lives.
Despite the sometimes horrific findings, the 10 x 30’ series has positivity at its heart as it will also follow some of the RSPCA’s success stories as they seek to rehabilitate and eventually rehouse some of the 12,000 dogs which the charity rehomes every year.
David Sumnall, Series Producer commented: “We are a nation of dog lovers but over 50% of RSPCA’s prosecutions last year were for cases involving abuse to dogs, so I think this is a really important series. We’ve been able to highlight the plight of these animals and show the incredible work that is being done to rescue and rehome them. It has been tough to witness the neglect at times but to be there as the dogs and puppies are saved and to see them with their new families has made it all worth it.”
Greg Barnett, Commissioning Editor, Entertainment, Daytime & Soaps said: “This series will have a tremendous impact on all those that watch. Some of the circumstances and conditions in which the RSPCA inspectors find dogs is unbelievably horrible. We’re trying to get as many dogs rehoused in loving homes as possible across the series run, putting the heart back into having a family pet and thereby giving four legged friends in need a second chance”
Alan Laxton, RSPCA Broadcast Executive:
The RSPCA rescues, rehabilitates and rehomes thousands of dogs a year across England and Wales. It’s great that The Dog Rescuers gives audiences the chance to see the dedication, hard work and passion all RSPCA staff have for making the lives of these dogs better. Some of the stories can be shocking, but The Dog Rescuers also shows the heart warming, happy endings that the RSPCA strives to give to every dog that comes into our care.
Connor PR working with child protection expert Mark William-Thomas on Exposure: ‘Predators Abroad’
EXPOSURE ‘PREDATORS ABROAD’
Wednesday 2nd October, ITV, 22.35pm
One year after exposing the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal, child protection expert Mark Williams-Thomas has gone undercover in a new documentary, Exposure: Predators Abroad, in a bid to unveil British child sex offenders who are travelling abroad to prey on vulnerable youngsters.
Mark Williams-Thomas is available for comment and interview.
Around the world an estimated 2 million children are exploited in the sex industry.
Among the offenders are British paedophiles – but no one knows how many. In 2008 authorities in the UK vowed to get tough with these travelling child sex offenders.
But five years later Exposure reveals Britain is struggling to crackdown on child sex tourism. Former detective Mark Williams-Thomas travels to Cambodia for his first major investigation following last year’s multi award-winning Exposure programme, ‘The Other Side of Jimmy Savile’.
Williams-Thomas goes undercover in Phnom Penh to expose the sickening trade in children for sex. Posing as a British child sex tourist, he meets men who want to supply two girls for $800 – just over £500. The girls are just 9 and 10.
Williams-Thomas also investigates the so-called ‘new sex tourism’, which involves paedophiles accessing children by way of teaching, setting up orphanages and volunteer work.
The programme features contributions from experts in the field, including Bharti Patel from the charity End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking or ECPAT.
She tells the programme: “Prosecution of child sex offenders abroad is dismally low in this country and that is probably the most worrying thing and it also sends out the signal that British sex offenders can get away with committing this and not be prosecuted. So more needs to be done.”
The programme was made with the help of Action Pour Les Enfants, an organisation that carries out surveillance operations on suspected paedophiles in Cambodia and helps police secure prosecutions. Shocking footage, never broadcast before, shows British paedophiles with their young victims.
Cambodian police are currently involved in an ongoing operation as a result of information supplied by this programme.
Connor PR specialist in TV Publicity, Connor PR specialist in expert PR, Connor PR working with Mark Williams-Thomas, child protection expert.
To arrange an interview with Mark please contact: Siobhan at Connor PR
Siobhan@connorpr.com Tel: 07966 177025
Sooty is victim of Alien Abduction
TV legend Sooty was left devastated when the star of his current stage show – “Sooty in Space” failed to arrive at the theatre.
The Triplod is an 8ft tall, green three legged space alien who travels with scenery and props in the Sooty Tour Lorry. Security guards at Brean Leisure Park Somerset noticed the Lorry had been broken into in the early hours of Saturday morning. Thieves ignored valuable stage equipment and instead made off with the giant alien.
Sooty has asked the public to be on the lookout for the Triplod. He is not dangerous and is only likely to want to engage onlookers in a dance known as The Triplod Stomp.
Police are investigating the alien abduction and are appealing for anyone with information to get in contact.
Sooty, who celebrated his 65th birthday last week, was being comforted by Sweep and Soo – They all declined to comment.
-Ends-
For more information please contact Siobhan at Connor PR siobhanconnorpr@gmail.com / Tel 07966 177025
Notes to editors:
The Sooty Show transmits weekdays on Citv at 9.10 am
The new series starts in September on itv 1 Sunday morning
Enjoying the documentary on my dear friend Alan Whicker on ITV, arguably the greatest TV reporter ever
Enjoying the documentary on my dear friend Alan Whicker on ITV, arguably the greatest TV reporter ever. Here’s a picture of myself and Alan on a press day.
Steve Masters on Sooty turning 65 and what he can teach us about marketing
Steve Masters from Brightpath on what Sooty can teach us about marketing.
Read full article here http://www.brightpathdigital.co.uk/blog/as-sooty-turns-65-what-he-can-teach-us-about-marketing/
Brightpath
My memories of working with Alan Whicker
I first met Alan Whicker and his partner Valerie Kleeman in 2008. I was working with September Films’ Chairman, David Green, who as a young director made 24 episodes of Whicker’s World.
BBC 2 commissioned Journey of a Lifetime, a series to celebrating Alan Whicker’s 50 years in television.
In the series, Alan Whicker takes us on an autobiographical journey through the second half of the 20th century. Classic clips from Whicker’s World are inter-cut with new material as the nation’s best-known international reporter retraces his steps, catches up with past interviewees and reflects on how the world has changed – for good and bad – over the last six decades.
An extraordinary archive reveals the number of genuine TV firsts established by Whicker – moments that have been endlessly copied ever since. Apart from landmark interviews with a diverse mix of characters ranging from Papa Doc to John Paul Getty, Whicker was a pioneer who brought subjects including plastic surgery, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, gay weddings, polygamy, swinging and gun-toting cops, fly-on-the-wall style, to British screens for the first time.
The show revisits these pioneering, iconic films, including the shocking clips of Whicker taking the first ever look inside a sex club in 1979; the first ever bullfight on British television in 1966 and the first ever gay kiss for British viewers in 1973.
The series also includes a number of landmark Whicker interviews with figures as diverse as Papa Doc, J Paul Getty and Percy Shaw, the inventor of the Cat’s Eye. There’s also the poignant, prophetic last ever interview given by Peter Sellers in 1979 in Beverly Hills, where the actor eerily predicts his own death shortly before tragically suffering a fatal heart attack.
During the series, Whicker provides some captivating fresh material as he returns to some of his favourite locations around the world and meets some of his most famous interviewees again.
In one episode, Whicker revisits one of his most famous encounters, Kurt & Kathy Wagner – the Beverly Hills plastic surgeon and his favourite client, his wife. Plus he returns to Palm Beach, the subject of perhaps his most-watched show, to find out how life has changed for the super-rich on this improbable sandbar in Florida. As gay rights in California once more make headlines as the state argues over whether gay marriage should be legalised, Whicker meets up with the Reverend Troy Perry who has been campaigning for this right ever since Whicker first filmed with him in 1973. He also catches up with his old friend Joan Collins to explore how women can make it to the top in Hollywood.
Baroness Fiona Thyssen, the subject of one of Whicker’s very first in-depth documentaries “The Model Millionairess” (1963), has become a close friend and Whicker interviews her for a third time for this latest series. She visits Whicker at his home in Jersey to look back at the original film which opened up a secret world of glamour and wealth to an eager British audience.
Alan Whicker said,” You might say I’m set in my airways. I’m one of those lucky people whose professional and private lives blend exactly: I can’t tell which is which – and one of the most agreeable things is that many of the people I’ve interviewed have become my friends. These programmes are signed. They’re intensely personal.”
Alan Whicker’s Journey Of A Lifetime is produced by September Films, a division of DCD Media, for BBC2.
Executive Producers are September Films’ Chairman and DCD’s Chief Creative Officer David Green who, as a young director, made 24 episodes of Whicker’s World , and September Films’ Director of Programmes, Peter Davey.
Series Director: Stan Griffin
Producer: Peter Wyles
Associate Producer: Katharine Begg
I then went onto promote the book to accompany the series.
I became good friends with Alan and Valerie, visiting them in Jersey.
Valerie Kleeman, Alan Whicker’s partner said
“A few years ago a poll asked who was the most envied man in the country – and Alan won by a country mile! He said that he didn’t know where work ended and private life began. Quoting Noel Coward ,he would say “work is more fun than fun”
On this last journey he will arrive curious, fascinated, and ready for a new adventure. He had a wonderful life and I was lucky to have shared it with him”.
David Green – Film Director and TV Producer. President & Chairman, September Films USA said:
“He was a television giant – made my first of 24 films with him as a baby director in Alaska 36 yeas ago next month – a true original, his passion for TV and life was unique – a brilliant popular journalist and observer of the human state who achieved legendary status among his peers and was loved by the great British public”.
Alan Whicker would be amazed by the wonderful tributes, I only wish he were here to read and see this out pouring of kindness.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23287351
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2013/jul/12/alan-whicker-tv-world-dies
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jul/12/alan-whicker-dies
http://news.sky.com/story/1114923/alan-whicker-broadcaster-dies-aged-87
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/10176240/How-Alan-Whicker-inspired-us-to-travel.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/alan-whicker-dies-journeys-end-2047372
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/alan-whicker-dies-journeys-end-2047372
Broadcasting Legend Alan Whicker CBE Has Died
Broadcasting legend Alan Whicker has died at home in Jersey after a short illness. He had been suffering from bronchial pneumonia and leaves behind his partner of 40 years, Valerie Kleeman.
After the Second World War, Alan Whicker became a journalist with the news agency Exchange Telegraph, acting as a correspondent during the Korean War. In 1957 he joined the BBC as part of the Tonight team, television’s first magazine programme. Alan went on to present the television programme for which he is best known, the long-running television series Whicker’s World. These programmes continued for more than 30 years. He was also instrumental in launching Yorkshire Television, producing television programmes for them from 1969 until 1992.
In the New Year’s Honours list published 31 December 2004, Alan Whicker was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to broadcasting.
In 2009, Alan Whicker returned to some of the locations and people who were originally featured in Whicker’s World for the BBC series Alan Whicker’s Journey Of A Lifetime. In this, he met with various people whom he had interviewed decades earlier, seeing how their lives had progressed.
For all media enquiries please contact Siobhan at Connor PR
07966 177025
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Connor PR working with our favourite TV Bear
Sooty returns to TV at the age of 65 in bid to attract new generation of fans with Sunday morning show.
- Glove puppet has been entertaining children since 1952
- Harry Corbett bought him from a novelty shop in Blackpool
- Richard Cadell, 44, took over the show in 1999
- Says Sooty works because it is ‘old-fashioned slapstick humour’
Read the full article in the Daily Mail: click here
Connor PR celebrating Sooty’s 65th Birthday
*** Richard Cadell is available for interview in connection with Sooty turning 65***
- He might be turning 65 this month but Sooty has no intention of hanging up his magic wand just yet!
- With the current series of the Sooty Show riding high for CITV, he has just finished filming a new series at his home in the village of Brean, Somerset and has no plans to retire when he gets his bus pass on 19th July.
Sooty on his 65th birthday
Amy Childs joins Sooty
The perfect poster boy for the government’s drive to keep the nation working for longer, Sooty looks as good today as he did 65 years ago when Harry Corbett bought him for the princely sum of 7s6d on Blackpool’s North Pier.
His current show is CITV’s most popular pre-school show and with a new clothing range in the pipeline and a whole host of celebrities including Joe Pasquale, Amy Childs and Caroline Quentin lined up to appear alongside him, the little bear shows no signs of slowing down now that he has reached the age of retirement.
Unfortunately Sooty didn’t return our calls (although we did receive a few silent messages earlier in the week), but we did manage to speak to his current business partner Richard Cadell who stars alongside him in the Sooty Show “I don’t know where he gets his energy from. I suppose in Teddy Bear years he is only 5 and having spent a lot of time with him lately filming the new series I think that’s probably an accurate reflection of his true age.”
“He just can’t help himself when it comes to practical jokes, only this morning I found him hiding one of Sweep’s bones in Soo’s bed and there’s never a day goes by when I don’t get caught out by a flying custard pie or squirt from his water pistol. I guess that must be his secret, he’ll always be young at heart!”
True to form, Sooty has a packed summer ahead of him with residences at Butlins, Pontins and Cadbury World, after which he’ll begin rehearsals for his hugely popular live Christmas show in London’s West End.
For more information please contact Siobhan at Connor PR siobhanconnorpr@gmail.com / Tel 07966 177025
Notes to editors:
The Sooty Show transmits weekdays on Citv at 9.10 am
The new series starts in September on itv 1 Sunday mornings and Citv.