THE Glasgow-based independent TV production company, Matchlight, has made a senior appointment, at the same time as receiving commissions from the BBC and Channel 4.
Paul Murray joins in the new role of creative director (new markets).
He joins having previously been head of Objective Scotland. His task – says a Matchlight media release – is to “focus on winning commissions in features, daytime and factual entertainment”.
He will work with Matchlight’s creative director, Ross Wilson, and alongside the company’s head of development, Jacqui Hayden.
Murray is a former creative director at STV. When, before that, at IWC Media, he produced the pilot and first series of the Channel 4 property programme, Location, Location, Location. At Objective Scotland, he oversaw the production of The Secret Removers, Fresh Meat House, Face the Clock and 50 Funniest Moments (all for Channel 4).
The release continues: “Matchlight is currently producing new series featuring both Helen Castor and Amanda Vickery for the BBC and working, for the first time, with the BBC’s economics editor, Stephanie Flanders.
“Helen Castor, who previously worked with Matchlight on the acclaimed history series, She Wolves: England’s Early Queens, is writing and presenting a three-part series entitled The Private Lives of Medieval Britain for BBC Four, while Prof. Amanda Vickery is writing and presenting Women and Art (working title), a landmark three-part series for BBC Two.
“Also for BBC Two, Stephanie Flanders will investigate how polio was cured, in an one-hour documentary that films this Autumn in the USA and UK. Her father, Michael Flanders, of the famous ’50s singing duo, Flanders and Swan, was crippled by polio whilst in the navy as a young man.
“From its base in Glasgow, Matchlight has also recently started work on its first series commission for BBC Scotland, Viva Variety (working title), a 4 x 30 commission; on a 1×60 documentary for BBC Scotland to mark the start of the year of the Commonwealth Games, The Commonwealth of Burns; and on Jockey School, a First Cut documentary for Channel 4.”
Pic: Drew Farrell.
