After Dark with Harry Belafonte, Denis Worrall, Breyten Breytenbach and others

Open Media is a British television production company, best known for the discussion series After Dark, described in the national press as "the most original programme on television".[1]

The company was founded in 1987 and has produced more than 400 hours of television for major UK broadcasters, including the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.[2] It has made entertainment series and factual specials which have sold all over the world. It also produces communications and corporate media for businesses.

Two Open Media productions were featured during the 25th anniversary of Channel 4 in autumn 2007: The Secret Cabaret[3] and After Dark[4] were shown again on More4 during the celebratory season.

After Dark has been widely praised, particularly for its subject matter and as a ground-breaking format for a talk show.[5][6][7][8] In 2023 After Dark was picked as one of the best ever tv shows in history in the centenary edition of the Radio Times.[9]

In November 2020, the company announced it had digitised its archive to make extracts from all its programmes available to the film, television and advertising industries.[10]

Productions

Entertainment

The Secret Cabaret
Don't Quote Me, Geoffrey Perkins with guests including Austin Mitchell, Carol Thatcher and Simon Williams, Channel 4 1990

Entertainment series include The Secret Cabaret and Don't Quote Me, hosted by Geoffrey Perkins, an example of a panel show.

Factual

Factual series and specials include

as well as various films for Channel 4's Equinox, e.g. Secrets of the Super Psychics, Superpowers?[18] and Theme Park Heaven.[19] Another Open Media film for Equinox - The Big Sleep[20] - was the subject of a lengthy article in 2022.[21]

The company mounted an unusual discussion - Weird Thoughts[22] for BBC2 - in 1994. This was characterised in an article in 2021 as follows: "Weird Thoughts, where Tony Wilson chairs a panel of experts debating why the 1990s seem so very strange. There are a lot of familiar faces here – the late James Randi, Fortean Times founder Bob Rickard, esoteric scholar Lynn Picknett – but today the biggest name is the one hovering around the back of the gathering: a young Mary Beard."[23]

One of the company's documentary specials – The Mediator[24] – was described in the British Medical Journal as providing "a new clinical role for a community psychiatrist – namely, healing rifts between gangs of aggressive young men in two neighbourhoods...a lively and well reasoned example of what can be done by a professional with group and family mediation skills."[25] A documentary on advertising agency M&C Saatchi required two months filming: "The brief was to expand on ideas from the company's manifesto...It's the first time the Saatchi breakaway has allowed unrestricted access behind scenes."[26]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lambert, Angela (15 September 1991). "A modern twist to an old, old story". The Independent.
  2. ↑ Production company website
  3. ↑ "Channel 4 at 25 – Page 5 – TV Forum". Tvforum.uk. Retrieved 18 January 2016.
  4. ↑ "Channel 4 at 25 – After Dark – TV Shows: UK – Digital Spy Forums". Digital Spy. 27 October 2007. Retrieved 18 January 2016.
  5. ↑ Turner, Alwyn W. (2010). Rejoice! Rejoice! Britain in the 1980s. Aurum Press. ISBN 978-1781310724.
  6. ↑ "Just don't f*** it up". The Guardian. 1 December 2012."Just don't f*** it up". The Sunday Times and The Observer. 2 December 2012.
  7. ↑ Cooper, Neil (5 January 2016). "An instinctive look at the world is taken through a glass darkly". The Herald. Retrieved 13 September 2017.
  8. ↑ Seale, Jack (18 April 2020). "Rerun the jewels". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  9. ↑ Radio Times, 18 September 2023,
  10. ↑ "Jerome Kuehl and Open Media". FOCAL newsletter. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
  11. ↑ Evening Standard, 15 March 1994
  12. ↑ The Times, 26 March 1994
  13. ↑ "Is This Your Life? (TV series) | BFI". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. 2 July 2015. Archived from the original on 12 June 2008. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
  14. ↑ "John Wells and the Three Wise Men (1988) | BFI". Explore.bfi.org.uk. 2 July 2015. Archived from the original on 12 August 2014. Retrieved 18 January 2016.
  15. ↑ "Natural Causes (1996) | BFI". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. 2 July 2015. Archived from the original on 11 October 2012. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
  16. ↑ "Shows with Olivia Newton-John, James Goldsmith, George Soros and Andrew Neil". Openmedia.co.uk. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
  17. ↑ Radio Times, 23 October 1996
  18. ↑ "Superpowers? (2001) – Overview". TCM.com. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
  19. ↑ "Theme Park Heaven (1992) | BFI". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. 2 July 2015. Archived from the original on 27 May 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
  20. ↑ "Hypnosis – The Big Sleep (1994) | BFI". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. 2 July 2015. Archived from the original on 27 May 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
  21. ↑ HYPNOSIS ON THE SMALL SCREEN by Kev Sheldrake, accessed 16 June 2022
  22. ↑ "Weird Thoughts (1994) @ EOFFTV". Eofftv.com. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
  23. ↑ "Weird '90s – Weird Night". Horrified. 17 May 2021. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  24. ↑ "The Mediator (1995) | BFI". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. 2 July 2015. Archived from the original on 29 January 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
  25. ↑ A new role for a psychiatrist?, review by Richard Morriss, British Medical Journal, October 1995
  26. ↑ Open Media gets inside story on M&C Saatchi, Televisual magazine, September 1998
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