Zenith Productions
Encyclopedia
Zenith Productions was a British independent film and television production company
which made a number of drama series including Inspector Morse
for ITV
, and several series including Byker Grove
and Hamish Macbeth
for the BBC
. Zenith also, through its subsidiary Blaze Television, produced the Saturday morning series SMTV Live
and CD:UK
for ITV featuring Ant & Dec
. The company ceased trading in 2006.
Jason Deans, Zenith goes into administration, The Guardian
, 30 August 2006
, formerly Controller of Programmes at Central's predecessor, ATV
.
Some of Zenith's early productions or co-productions included the films The Hit, Wetherby
, Insignificance
, Sid and Nancy
, Personal Services
, Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire
, Prick Up Your Ears
and Wish You Were Here
. Other productions it was involved with included Escape from Sobibor
, A Gathering of Old Men
and an adaptation of James Joyce
's The Dead. On television Zenith scored a major hit with Inspector Morse
, which began airing in 1987.
Ahead of an IBA
directive that 25% of ITV programming would have to be bought in from independents, Zenith was sold by Central to Carlton Communications
in October 1987 for £6.3 million. Carlton sold on a 49% stake to Paramount Pictures
in 1989. Carlton had also bought the game-show specialist Action Time, which it folded into Zenith as a separate division, although the two units continued to maintain a separate identity.
New productions included the series The Paradise Club
(1989) and Byker Grove
(from 1989), both for the BBC; one-off drama documentary Shoot to Kill
(1990) for Yorkshire Television
/ITV; sci-fi drama Chimera (1991) for Anglia Television
/ITV; and the children's series Gophers!
(1990) for Channel 4
.
. The company was initially merged with Portman's existing production arm, but demerged the next year. Charles Denton left the company on the change of ownership; Ivan Rendall, producer of Byker Grove, subsequently took over as managing director.
Drama series produced by the company included the Leslie Grantham
vehicle 99-1 (1994) and Bodyguards
(1996) for ITV, and for the BBC the very popular Hamish MacBeth
(1995) and the epic but less popular Rhodes (1996). The company also moved into entertainment, producing first the Ant & Dec
Show (1995) on Children's BBC for the two popular stars from Byker Grove, and then the hit Saturday morning ITV shows SMTV Live
(1998) and CD:UK
(1998), under the aegis of a specially formed subsidiary Blaze Television.
In 1998 Zenith merged with a city-backed investment and rights-ownership group Television Enterprise & Asset Management (Team), and renamed itself Zenith Entertainment. By 2000, with the continuing success of Byker Grove, SMTV Live and CD:UK, the company was producing 300 hours of television a year, and was almost sold to United News & Media for £27 million. Instead, in 2003 the company was bought out by its management for somewhat less than £10 million.
New Zenith programmes in this period included Two Thousand Acres of Sky
(2001) and 55 Degrees North
(2004) for the BBC, and children's programmes The Ghost Hunter
(2000) for BBC and the animated King Arthur's Disasters
(2005) for ITV.
However, the company received a fatal double blow in 2006, when the BBC
cut back on drama programming for teenagers and cancelled Byker Grove after 17 years; and ITV cancelled the CD:UK music show. The company tried to seek a merger partner; but eventually had to announce it would cease trading. The music subsidiary Blaze Television was sold to United States producer Shout! Factory
, who continued to produce CD:USA for a time on the format of the UK show.
Production company
A production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, and video.- Tasks and functions :...
which made a number of drama series including Inspector Morse
Inspector Morse (TV series)
Inspector Morse is a detective drama based on Colin Dexter's series of Chief Inspector Morse novels. The series starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis. Dexter makes a cameo appearance in all but three of the episodes....
for ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
, and several series including Byker Grove
Byker Grove
Byker Grove was a British television series which aired between 1989 and 2006 and was created by Adele Rose. The show was broadcast at 5.10pm after Newsround on CBBC on BBC One...
and Hamish Macbeth
Hamish Macbeth (TV series)
Hamish Macbeth is a television series made by BBC Scotland and first aired in 1995. It is loosely based on a series of mystery novels by M. C. Beaton . The series concerns a local police officer, Constable Hamish Macbeth in the fictitious town of Lochdubh on the north coast of Scotland. The titular...
for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. Zenith also, through its subsidiary Blaze Television, produced the Saturday morning series SMTV Live
SMTV Live
SMTV Live , also written SM:TV Live and in early promotional material SMTV://live, was a British Saturday morning children's television programme, first broadcast on ITV on 29 August 1998 and last broadcast on 27 December 2003.On the surface, the programme did not seem to stray away from the format...
and CD:UK
CD:UK
CD:UK was a British music television programme. Originally run in conjunction with SMTV Live, the programme was first aired on ITV on 29 August 1998 to rival the BBC's Live & Kicking and was the replacement for The Chart Show, which had been airing on the network for nine and a half years.In...
for ITV featuring Ant & Dec
Ant & Dec
Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly , known collectively as Ant & Dec, are an English comedy and TV presenting duo from Newcastle upon Tyne, England...
. The company ceased trading in 2006.
Jason Deans, Zenith goes into administration, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, 30 August 2006
History
Zenith was established in 1984 as a subsidiary of Central Television, the holder of the ITV Midlands broadcast franchise. The company was headed by Charles DentonCharles Denton (television and film producer)
Charles Denton is a British film and television producer and executive.He first worked for the BBC as a documentary filmmaker for five years from 1963, before he left the corporation to go freelance...
, formerly Controller of Programmes at Central's predecessor, ATV
Associated TeleVision
Associated Television, often referred to as ATV, was a British television company, holder of various licences to broadcast on the ITV network from 24 September 1955 until 00:34 on 1 January 1982...
.
Some of Zenith's early productions or co-productions included the films The Hit, Wetherby
Wetherby (film)
Wetherby is a 1985 British drama film written and directed by playwright David Hare.-Plot synopsis:Set in the town of Wetherby in West Yorkshire, the film focuses on Jean Travers, a middle-aged spinster schoolteacher...
, Insignificance
Insignificance (film)
Insignificance is a 1985 motion picture drama/comedy directed by Nicolas Roeg, produced by Jeremy Thomas and Alexander Stuart, and adapted by Terry Johnson from his play of the same name. The film is set in 1954, with most of the action taking place in a hotel room in New York City...
, Sid and Nancy
Sid and Nancy
Sid and Nancy is a 1986 British biopic directed by Alex Cox. The film portrays the life of Sid Vicious , bassist of the seminal punk rock band the Sex Pistols, and his relationship with girlfriend Nancy Spungen .-Plot:The film opens with several police officers dragging Sid Vicious out of the Hotel...
, Personal Services
Personal Services
Personal Services is a 1987 British comedy film directed by Terry Jones and written by David Leland. It is the story of the rise of a madam of a suburban brothel which caters to older men. The story is inspired by the real experiences of Cynthia Payne, the legendary "House of Cyn" madam. The film...
, Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire
Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire
Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire is a 1985 British musical film starring Phil Daniels and Alun Armstrong. The film was directed by Alan Clarke and written by Trevor Preston.-Plot:...
, Prick Up Your Ears
Prick Up Your Ears
Prick Up Your Ears is a 1987 film, directed by Stephen Frears, about the playwright Joe Orton and his lover Kenneth Halliwell. The screenplay was written by Alan Bennett, based on the book by John Lahr...
and Wish You Were Here
Wish You Were Here (1987 film)
Wish You Were Here is a 1987 British drama/comedy film starring Emily Lloyd and Tom Bell. The film was written and directed by David Leland. The original music score was composed by Stanley Myers.-Plot:...
. Other productions it was involved with included Escape from Sobibor
Escape from Sobibor
Escape from Sobibor is a 1987 British made-for-TV film which aired on CBS. It deals with the extermination camp at Sobibor, the site of the most successful uprising by Jewish prisoners of German extermination camps...
, A Gathering of Old Men
A Gathering of Old Men (film)
A Gathering of Old Men is a 1987 American television drama film directed by Volker Schlöndorff and based on the novel of the same name. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Louis Gossett Jr...
and an adaptation of James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's The Dead. On television Zenith scored a major hit with Inspector Morse
Inspector Morse (TV series)
Inspector Morse is a detective drama based on Colin Dexter's series of Chief Inspector Morse novels. The series starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis. Dexter makes a cameo appearance in all but three of the episodes....
, which began airing in 1987.
Ahead of an IBA
Independent Broadcasting Authority
The Independent Broadcasting Authority was the regulatory body in the United Kingdom for commercial television - and commercial/independent radio broadcasts...
directive that 25% of ITV programming would have to be bought in from independents, Zenith was sold by Central to Carlton Communications
Carlton Communications
Carlton Communications was a British media company. It was led by Michael Green and listed on the London Stock Exchange from 1983 until 2 February 2004, when it taken over by Granada plc to form ITV plc with Carlton gaining 32% of the new company....
in October 1987 for £6.3 million. Carlton sold on a 49% stake to Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
in 1989. Carlton had also bought the game-show specialist Action Time, which it folded into Zenith as a separate division, although the two units continued to maintain a separate identity.
New productions included the series The Paradise Club
The Paradise Club
The Paradise Club is a BBC television drama starring Don Henderson and Leslie Grantham as Frank & Danny Kane. Two series were produced and were broadcast between 1989 and 1990....
(1989) and Byker Grove
Byker Grove
Byker Grove was a British television series which aired between 1989 and 2006 and was created by Adele Rose. The show was broadcast at 5.10pm after Newsround on CBBC on BBC One...
(from 1989), both for the BBC; one-off drama documentary Shoot to Kill
Shoot to Kill (1990 TV drama)
Shoot to Kill is a four-hour drama documentary reconstruction of the events that led to the 1984–86 Stalker Inquiry into the shooting of six terrorist suspects in Northern Ireland in 1982 by a specialist unit of the Royal Ulster Constabulary , allegedly without warning ; the organised fabrication...
(1990) for Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television, now officially known as ITV Yorkshire and sometimes unofficially abbreviated to YTV, is a British television broadcaster and the contractor for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network...
/ITV; sci-fi drama Chimera (1991) for Anglia Television
Anglia Television
Anglia Television is the ITV franchise holder for the East Anglia franchise region. Although Anglia Television takes its name from East Anglia, its transmission coverage extends beyond the generally accepted boundaries of that region. The station is based at Anglia House in Norwich, with regional...
/ITV; and the children's series Gophers!
Gophers!
Gophers! was a Channel 4 children's programme about a family of American gophers who move into a new neighbourhood, called Sycamore Heights, living next door to a family of uptight but well-intentioned rabbits, The Burrows....
(1990) for Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
.
1993–2006
Carlton took on the ITV London franchise in 1993, and so found itself in turn in the position of having to divest Zenith. The profitable game-show subsidiary Action Time was sold to its management, with Carlton and Paramount each retaining a 15% holding. (The company was later re-acquired by Carlton in 2003, after rules on ITV production had changed). The drama side of Zenith was more of a challenge, but eventually found a buyer in Portman Entertainment, headed by Victor GlynnVictor Glynn
Victor Glynn, an award winning film and television producer and writer, was born in Balham, London on 11 October 1956. He married Lorna Gillian Glynn in 1982. She died in 1999. He has four children. His daughter Harriet is a film producer...
. The company was initially merged with Portman's existing production arm, but demerged the next year. Charles Denton left the company on the change of ownership; Ivan Rendall, producer of Byker Grove, subsequently took over as managing director.
Drama series produced by the company included the Leslie Grantham
Leslie Grantham
Leslie Michael Grantham is an English actor best known for his role as "Dirty" Den Watts in the soap opera EastEnders. He is also a convicted murderer, having served 10 years for the killing of a German taxi driver, and he generated significant press coverage as the result of an online sex scandal...
vehicle 99-1 (1994) and Bodyguards
Bodyguards (TV series)
Bodyguards is a British television series that focuses on the cases of a specialized bodyguard unit called the Close Protection Group in service of the UK government.The lead cast members were Sean Pertwee as Ian Worrell and Louise Lombard as Liz Shaw...
(1996) for ITV, and for the BBC the very popular Hamish MacBeth
Hamish Macbeth
Hamish Macbeth is a fictional police officer who serves as his town's detective in a series of mystery novels created by M. C. Beaton . The novels are published in the UK by Constable & Robinson. In an interview, the author recalls,...
(1995) and the epic but less popular Rhodes (1996). The company also moved into entertainment, producing first the Ant & Dec
Ant & Dec
Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly , known collectively as Ant & Dec, are an English comedy and TV presenting duo from Newcastle upon Tyne, England...
Show (1995) on Children's BBC for the two popular stars from Byker Grove, and then the hit Saturday morning ITV shows SMTV Live
SMTV Live
SMTV Live , also written SM:TV Live and in early promotional material SMTV://live, was a British Saturday morning children's television programme, first broadcast on ITV on 29 August 1998 and last broadcast on 27 December 2003.On the surface, the programme did not seem to stray away from the format...
(1998) and CD:UK
CD:UK
CD:UK was a British music television programme. Originally run in conjunction with SMTV Live, the programme was first aired on ITV on 29 August 1998 to rival the BBC's Live & Kicking and was the replacement for The Chart Show, which had been airing on the network for nine and a half years.In...
(1998), under the aegis of a specially formed subsidiary Blaze Television.
In 1998 Zenith merged with a city-backed investment and rights-ownership group Television Enterprise & Asset Management (Team), and renamed itself Zenith Entertainment. By 2000, with the continuing success of Byker Grove, SMTV Live and CD:UK, the company was producing 300 hours of television a year, and was almost sold to United News & Media for £27 million. Instead, in 2003 the company was bought out by its management for somewhat less than £10 million.
New Zenith programmes in this period included Two Thousand Acres of Sky
Two Thousand Acres of Sky
Two Thousand Acres of Sky was a TV drama which aired on BBC Television from 2001 to 2003. It is also syndicated in the United States on PBS. It was created and written by Timothy Prager. The Executive Producer was Adrian Bate....
(2001) and 55 Degrees North
55 Degrees North
55 Degrees North is a BBC television drama series starring Don Gilet as DS Nicky Cole, a London detective relocated to Newcastle upon Tyne after exposing police corruption. Dervla Kirwan co-stars as Claire Maxwell, an ambitious solicitor....
(2004) for the BBC, and children's programmes The Ghost Hunter
The Ghost Hunter (TV series)
The Ghost Hunter is an award winning British children's drama series created for the BBC and based on the books The Ghost Hunter by Ivan Jones . It was first broadcast in January 2000 and the last series was first broadcast,in 2002. Repeats continue to be shown on BBC and CBBC as well as in other...
(2000) for BBC and the animated King Arthur's Disasters
King Arthur's Disasters
King Arthur's Disasters is a British animated series which first aired on CITV, a now defunct programming block on ITV1. The series was Co-Created by Paul Parkes and Will Ashurst, the series follows and depicts attempts by King Arthur, assisted by the wizard Merlin, to woo the beautiful...
(2005) for ITV.
However, the company received a fatal double blow in 2006, when the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
cut back on drama programming for teenagers and cancelled Byker Grove after 17 years; and ITV cancelled the CD:UK music show. The company tried to seek a merger partner; but eventually had to announce it would cease trading. The music subsidiary Blaze Television was sold to United States producer Shout! Factory
Shout! Factory
Shout! Factory is an entertainment company founded in 2003 that was started by Richard Foos , Bob Emmer and Garson Foos initially as a specialty music label...
, who continued to produce CD:USA for a time on the format of the UK show.