Rectify
was originally
planned to air
on AMC, with The
Shield’s Walton Goggins
in the lead role. It was
transferred to sister
channel SundanceTV,
becoming its first
original scripted
series.ARTS & MEDIALONGEST CAREER AS A TV PRESENTER
Sir David Attenborough (UK) made his television debut on
Zoo Quest (BBC UK, inset) in 1954, and presented Planet
Earth II (BBC UK, above) in 2017, a total of 63 years later.
The naturalist has won BAFTA awards for programmes in
black and white, colour, HD and 3D.
The longest-running TV show with the same
presenter is The Sky at Night (BBC UK), which was hosted
by the astronomer Sir Patrick Moore (UK) for 55 years from
its first edition in 1957 to Moore’s death on 9 Dec 2012.FIRST SCRIPTED TV SERIES
IN VIRTUAL REALITY
Invisible, a sci-fi series that tells the story of the Ashlands,
a powerful New York City family with a supernatural gift, is
described by its producers as “the first major scripted series
designed for 360–degree virtual reality”. Each episode
was filmed using a static 360 0 VR camera (pictured above,
on the table), submerging the viewer in a full panoramic
experience. Co-directed by Doug Liman (inset), Invisible‘s
first season consisted of five six-minute episodes and was
made available for the Samsung VR platform in 2 016.
HIGHEST-RATED
TV SERIES (CURRENT)
The fourth season of SundanceTV’s
drama Rectify debuted on 26 Oct
2016, garnering a Metacritic
rating of 99 out of 10 0 and a
viewer rating of 8.8. The show
follows the struggles of
Daniel Holden (Aden
Young), who returns
home after 19 years
having been wrongly
imprisoned for murder.
The highest-rated
TV series (ever)
is Breaking Bad:
Season 5 (2012), with
a Metacritic score
of 99 and a viewer
rating of 9.6.HIGHEST‑PAID TELEVISION CAST
As of 22 Sep 2016, the top four male earners on US TV were the male leads of The Big
Bang Theory: Jim Parsons ($25.5 m; £19.6 m); Johnny Galecki ($24 m; £18.4 m); Simon
Helberg ($22.5 m; £17.3 m, all USA); and Kunal Nayyar (IND/USA, b. UK, $22 m; £16.9 m).
Co-star Kaley Cuoco (USA) was the second highest-paid female television star, with
$24.5 m (£18.8 m), behind Sofía Vergara (see below left). The combined earnings of these
actors alone push The Big Bang Theory‘s wage bill beyond the $100-m (£79.7-m) mark.HIGHEST ANNUAL
EARNINGS FOR
A TV ACTRESS IN
A CURRENT SERIES
Modern Family star Sofía
Vergara (COL) was the top-
earning TV actress for the
fifth year in a row, with an
estimated income of $43 m
(£29.4 m) in the 12 months
leading up to 1 Jun 2016,
according to Forbes. This
was a significant increase
from the estimated
$28.5 m (£18.6 m) Vergara
earned in 2014–15.
HIGHEST ANNUAL
EARNINGS FOR A
TV PERSONALITY
(FEMALE, CURRENT)
In the 12 months leading
up to 1 Jun 2016, TV star,
actress and host of her
own self-titled chat show
Ellen DeGeneres (USA)
earned an estimated
$75 m (£51.3 m),
according to Forbes.
The highest annual
earnings for a TV
personality (male,
current) is $88 m
(£60.2 m), earned by
Dr Phil McGraw (USA).MOST EXPENSIVE TELEVISION PROGRAMME
The 10 episodes of the first season of Netflix’s lavish drama
The Crown (2016) cost a widely reported $130 m (£105.6 m).
The series follows the life of Queen Elizabeth II (played by
Claire Foy) from the 1940s to the present day. Based in part
on writer Peter Morgan’s 2013 stage play The Audience,
the series reunited many of the creative team behind the
Oscar-winning film The Queen (UK/USA/DEU/FRA, 2006),
which starred Helen Mirren as the eponymous monarch.