MUSIC
The 2024 edition of the U.K.’s annual Brit Awards will take place on March 2 and will continue its primetime slot onbroadcaster ITV1 and streamer ITVX, live from The O2 arena in London. Damian Christian, managing director and president of promotions at Atlantic Records (part of Warner Music U.K.) will continue as chair of the Brit committee for 2024; Sally Wood will stay on as executive producer of the show for Brits TV; and Misty Buckley will return to design the set for the awards. Maggie Crowe, British Phonographic Industry’s director of events and charities, will oversee the overall running of the event. Mastercard returns as the headline sponsor.
The 2023 event moved to the weekend for the first time in the event’s history and proved to be a success. The ceremony, hosted by Mo Gilligan, saw Harry Styles sweep the board, alongside wins for Wet Leg, Beyoncé, Becky Hill and David Guetta and performances from Styles, Wet Leg, Sam Smith, Kim Petras, Stormzy and Cat Burns. Viewing figures for the ITV1 broadcast peaked at just under 4 million on the night – the highest figure in three years – with 54% share of 16-34 year olds, the highest in a decade. The individual audience share, at 25.7%, was the highest in over five years.
***
Legendary British music group The Police have officially joined TikTok. Celebrating the 40th anniversary of their groundbreaking album “Synchronicity” this year, the trio, consisting of Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland, will be sharing original content, including unseen footage and provide a look into the creative process of their hits, which include “Roxanne,” “Every Breath You Take” and “Message in a Bottle.”
The group is already popular with the TikTok community, with “Every Breath You Take” (165,000+ total creations) the subject to a number of viral TikTok trends. “I’ll Be Missing You.” which samples the track has also had communities around the globe paying homage to the late The Notorious B.I.G.
FESTIVAL
“The American” director and renowned photographer Anton Corbijn will serve as the feature film competition jury president at the 19th Zurich Film Festival (Sept. 28 – Oct. 8) and fellow jurors include “Brooklyn” producer Finola Dwyer, directors Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre (“Lady Chatterley’s Lover”) and Juho Kuosmanen (“Compartment No. 6”) and VFX consultant and creative producer Bryce Nielsen (“Roma.”)
Malte Grunert, founder and CEO of Amusement Park Films (“All Quiet on the Western Front”) is the president of the focus competition jury and serving alongside are producers Gabrielle Tana (“The Dig”) and Katrin Renz(“Ingeborg Bachmann”), editor Heike Parplies (“Firebrand”) and actor Sven Schelker (“Bruno Manser”).
The documentary film competition jury is led by Feras Fayyad (“The Cave”) and fellow jurors include editor editor Claudio Cea (“Bruno Manser”) and filmmakers Monica Lazurean-Gorgan (“Between Revolutions”), Crystal Moselle (“Betty”) and Shaunak Sen (“All That Breathes”).
APPOINTMENT
ITV Studios has appointed Tom Clark to the newly created role of executive VP commercial strategy, global partnerships, reporting to Ruth Berry, managing director, global partnerships. Clark will work closely with the sales, digital and brand licensing teams to develop new revenue streams. He will also oversee the insights team and play a key role in looking at ways to leverage data emanating from ITV Studios’ growing suite of AVOD/FAST channels. He joins from Airbnb where he held the position of director, experiences commercial operations and has had previous stints at PRS for Music and The Walt Disney Company.
