The BBC has chosen 23 independent production companies between which it will share its £1m regional development fund. The fund was launched at Broadcast's Commissioning Conference in Manchester last November. It was intended to support programme development from indies that are based outside the M25.

  London-based freelancers new to the business can now get their hands on a Skillset Audio Visual Industries Induction course and it will cost them absolutely nothing. The Video College is offering freelancers the chance to go on a free City and Guilds course that has the potential to help them to find work.

  NAB, the world's biggest electronic media convention is spotlighting the distribution revolution as broadcasters embrace broadband, from internet protocol television to podcasting. With the switch to digital and high definition no longer making headline the new forms of distribution are now attracting attention, an in particular Internet Protocol Television IPTV.

  Following news that ITV had secured the UK television broadcast rights to the forthcoming James Bond film Casino Royale, details of the battle for Bond have started to emerge..

  New forms of distribution dominated discussion at the annual MIPTV programme market and conference in Cannes this year from mobile networks to internet protocol television (IPTV) as execs have woken up to the fact that this new technology is about to arrive, giving them new markets for content.

  A new sitcom that will reunite Absolutely Fabulous stars Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley has been snapped up for American TV. The eight part series, which will first be seen in the UK later this year under the title Jam and Jerusalem, follows the exploits of a WI-style women's group in a small village.

It was only a matter of time. Teams of intrepid filmmakers battle it out making a short film a week with the elusive prize of a studio housekeeping deal under the watchful eye of Steven Spielberg. Mark Burnett, the American producer behind The Apprentice and Survivor has convinced Spielberg to be the Donald Trump/Alan Sugar godfather figure for On the Lot, to be produced by Fox, the comp...

  UK distributor Granada International is launching a Tightrope Pictures TV movie about a football manager, starring British actor Ray Winstone at MipTV. The film will air later this year.

  The Institute of Broadcast Sound is looking to solve some of the screen industry’s shortage of skilled sound personnel, particularly in TV production. A Training Forum has been specially convened to address the issue.