Festival Overview

2019 Festival Highlights

2019 was a record-breaking year for the Festival, with it's highest number of delegates, a 50:50 gender split of speakers, and the first time a prop was used during the MacTaggart Lecture - as Dorothy Byrne held up a herring whilst simultaneously calling out policitians for their lies. Byrne's speech, by turns funny and ferocious, and with an added whistlestop tour of past MacTaggart efforts, has gone down in history as one of the best yet.

We covered all the biggest issues this year from duty of care, the Cambridge Analytica story, representation and even a critique of Trump’s America courtesy of Jerry Springer.

However, the Festival was true to form in ensuring there was plenty of fun and irreverence along the way – from the genius pairings of Alastair Campbell and James Graham and Jess Phillips and Joe Lycett; to the most-entertaining take on diversity, working culture and mental health issues yet seen with our Edinburgh does…Celebrity Call Centre and so much more.

2018 Festival Highlights

2018 saw a wide-ranging and eclectic mix of sessions, covering everything from sustainability to social mobility, to some revelatory Netflix data.

Throw in a table read from the Derry Girls (pictured above), a hilarious and insightful masterclass on A Very English Scandal with Hugh Grant & Stephen Frears, a revealing and powerful MacTaggart from Michaela Coel, a look at how AI can make for a happier workforce and what impact C4’s relocation may have and it’s little wonder people leave with brains saturated with more than just alcohol.

We've tried our best to cram the three-days into just five minutes so you can look back on what has been the most successful Festival yet.

2017 Festival Highlights

2017 was an important year for news media and no one was better placed other than long-serving news presenter and journalist Jon Snow to the give the MacTaggart - who delivered a moving speech urging the media to face up to its disconnect with ordinary people following the tragic Grenfell fire.

The Festival celebrated industry legends such as David Attenborough, Russell Brand, and Russell T Davies as well as looking at the future stars of TV with exclusive interviews with writer, Pheobe Waller-Bridge and YouTuber stars Dan Howell, Phil Lester and Humza Arshad.

The Gamchanger strand once again included some of the biggest names in US TV such as Courteney Monroe from Nat Geo, Mark Gordon, and Starz's Carmi Zlotnik.

Click below to see all this and more in our 2017 highlights reel.

2016 Festival Highlights

Our 2016 Festival line-up included a celebration of showrunners including Ronald D. Moore, The Vampire Diaries' creator Julie Plec and Sally Wainwright.

We were entertained by TV Execs taking on bizzare and TV themed challenges given to them by Greg Davies - UKTVs' own Taskmaster, and strutting their stuff in front of scary spice herself, Mel B, for a live Edinburgh special of Lip Sync Battle.

VICE’s Shane Smith delivered a MacTaggart that still has everyone talking and we were given an insight into the brilliant mind of Sharon Horgan for the Alternative MacTaggart.

To see our 2016 highlights reel click the link below.

2015 Festival Highlights

2015 saw the introduction of the new Gamechanger strand which marked the beginning of a new international focus for Edinburgh. We saw channel bosses from A+E Networks, Amazon Studios, HBO, FX, Showtime, Discovery US, and ABC.

It was also the year we were given the keys to the Big Brother house, so we decided to lock up put eight TV legends in their for 24 hours, leading to some of the most honest and hilarious antidotes you couldn't get anywhere else. We held a conversation between Martin Freeman and Mark Lawson, premiered This Is England 90s, and said farewell to ITV’s Downton Abbey.

Armando Iannucci gave one of the most memorable and inspirational MacTaggarts to date, urging BBC executives to interfere less to allow writers and directors to make programmes that can compete with the best of American television.

Click the link below to see all this and more.

2014 Festival Highlights

The Business of Creativity was the theme for 2014 so we packed our programme with masterclasses featuring the stars and creators of some of the most creative and innovative shows such as Game of Thrones, Line of Duty, Doctor Who and Catastrophe.

As ever, we also cracked down on the biggest topics and issues facing our industry as Richard Osman interviewed Frankie Boyle on the State of the TV Nation, we revealed the results from our 'How to be a better Indie' survey and David Abraham's MacTaggart touched on America’s involvement in the UK TV industry, Super-Indies, and creating success for local TV channels.

To see more from our 2014 Festival click the link below.

2013 Festival Highlights

At our 2013 Festival we held live versions of some of the year’s TV favourites. We had four television bosses try to impress Mary and Paul in our Great British Bake-off: Ultimate Live Baking Battle and a Room 101 special, hosted by Frank Skinner himself.

We spoke with the showrunners of hits The Undateables and Pointless, had a chat with Gary Neville, heard from TV Execs about what the ‘worst TV’ they’ve made taught them, listened to Mary Portas tell us how to strip TV back to its essence and challenged the management skills of channel heads in ‘Media Crisis Live!’, an interactive session that simulated a digital media scandal unfolding.

To watch our 2013 highlights reel click below.