New website alert! And this one looks to be a real treat if you are in the TV production game. TVMole.com has a mission statement

‘TV Mole has been set up to celebrate and raise the profile of factual TV development and increase the standard of development skills across the industry.’

Speaking for myself, this is great news. I’ve worked in development for a majority of my time in the TV industry and I believe as a creative working in TV you are always going to spending a large chunk of your time in development in some form or another – so this website will be a huge fountain of knowledge.

The TVMole herself is Nicola Lees an old colleague of mine from our time at the BBC. I could go on and on about all the reasons to listen to her, but her bio speaks for itself:

‘Nicola Lees has developed hundreds of factual programmes for network and cable channels in the UK and USA, including the BBC, Discovery Channel, Travel Channel and TLC.

Nicola has written more than 370 factual television programme proposals, and has been directly involved in originating, researching, writing or pitching more than 80 commissioned programs, including Oceans (Oceans), Moms on the Road (Travel Channel), How Not to Be Shark Bait (Discovery), Desperate Midwives (BBC3) and the BAFTA nominated Earth: Power of the Planet (BBC2/Nat Geo).’

Development is seen as a bit of a ‘dark art’ so I think it’s great that Nicola has set up this site to share her years of yoda-esque knowledge!