After 50 years, the Edinburgh TV Festival is no more.

Greater Manchester will become the new home of the biggest annual gathering of the British TV industry after a competitive bidding process fought between numerous British cities.

The decision means that 2026 will be the final time the TV Festival takes place in the Scottish capital.

Campbell Glennie, CEO of the TV Festival and TV Foundation, said Greater Manchester “presented a vision for the Festival that combined genuine creative ambition and future-facing energy with practical accessibility and affordability for delegates.” “This means we can radically reduce the costs associated with attending the Festival as well as the cost of passes,” he added. “The city reflects the expanding ambition of the UK television industry, while still offering the scale, connectivity and unique cultural identity needed for an event of this significance; it  gives us the strongest platform to grow the Festival’s reach and impact in the years ahead.”

The Festival team paid tribute to Edinburgh, describing the city and its cultural heritage as “embedded within the TV Festival’s heart and soul,” but board chair Fatima Salaria said the decision ultimately came down to questions of “affordability, accessibility, sustainability and the changing shape of the industry.” The other losing bid, Newcastle’s, was branded “ambitious, imaginative and deeply compelling” by the festival team.

More details will be revealed in due course about the dates, shape and venue of the 2027 fest, the first ever to be held in England.

The TV Festival launched a surprise bidding process late last year, open to both Edinburgh and other cities, although London was excluded. This came following feedback and a review amid complaints over affordability, with accommodation costs in Edinburgh hugely expensive in August due to the Edinburgh Fringe, which takes place simultaneous to the TV Festival.

But the decision to take such a big gathering away from Scotland has been controversial. Top comedy figures complained several weeks back that numerous British hits would never have seen the light of day had it not been for the Festival’s alchemy with the Fringe, an alchemy that has led American executives to come over in droves and birthed shows like Fleabag and Baby Reindeer. Others have raised concerns about the impact the relocation will have on the local Scottish industry. The Edinburgh International Film Festival, at the same time, has been growing, having just launched a conference section.

Greater Manchester and its surrounding area itself has a rich TV heritage of production, news and cultural hits like Queer as Folk, Shameless and The Royle Family.

The timing of the news is intriguing. One influential champion of its bid was Andy Burnham, the former Greater Manchester Mayor who is now set to become UK Prime Minister after an astonishing few weeks in British politics that has seen the current PM Keir Starmer step down, effectively paving the way for Burnham to win unchallenged. A separate Manchester industry event, Mythos Manchester, took place for the first time earlier this month and Burnham was due to speak.

This year’s final Edinburgh kicks off in around two months and its keynote MacTaggart lecture will be delivered by YouTube EMEA boss Pedro Pina.

Disney+ is building out its scripted team for the UK and EMEA.

The streamer has appointed What It Feels Like For a Girl exec producer Ron O’Berst as Director, Scripted Originals UK, and Wreck development exec Laura Klimke as Senior Development Manager, Scripted Originals UK.

This comes six months after Disney+ EMEA Head of Content Angela Jain promoted four execs and then revealed a slate of European originals at Series Mania in March.

Disney+’s UK commissioning team are behind the well-regarded ‘bonkbuster’ Rivals and comedy-drama Alice and Steve, with O’Berst joining to ramp up investment in local originals across EMEA. Recent Euro originals have included Breslau out of Poland, Bref.2 in France, This is Not Hollywood in Italy and Invisible in Spain.

Based in London, O’Berst and Klimke will report to Lee Mason, Vice President, Scripted Content, Disney+ EMEA, working with his scripted originals team to identify, develop and commission for Disney+ and Hulu audiences.

“As we ramp up our Originals slate, Ron and Laura bring exceptional creative expertise, outstanding industry relationships and a shared passion for championing distinctive voices,” said Jain. “Their appointments are another important step in our ambitious plan to build a world-class originals team who will deliver more volume and variety, alongside the high standards of creative excellence our audiences expect.”

O’Berst joins from Hera Pictures, where he was most recently executive producer on BBC Three’s BAFTA-nominated drama What It Feels Like for a Girl, which was recently acquired by Prime Video and is based on the memoir by Paris Lees. He also served as Story Producer on Mary & George for Sky Atlantic and Starz. Prior to joining Hera Pictures in 2020, O’Berst was Head of Development at Drama Republic and Head of Scripted Development at BBC Worldwide. He began his career at Channel 4 and Discovery Networks International.

I’ve long admired Angela, Lee and the wider team’s impeccable taste, and I’m looking forward to working with them as Disney continues to grow internationally with such an incredible slate of projects,” said O’Berst.

Klimke joins from Pure Fiction Television, where she was executive producer, and has also spent four years as Head of Development at Euston Films, where she worked on projects including the BBC’s Hard Sun and ITV’s The Sister, both written by Neil Cross. More recently, she developed comedy-horror drama Wreck, which ran on BBC Three for two seasons.

“Disney is making some of the most ambitious, vibrant British drama with incredible creatives, and I am thrilled to join Lee and the team in finding the next slate of shows that defy expectation,” she said.

We have our first look at Possession, the new five-part limited series from Sky, led by Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Loki).

The series was previously titled Inheritance and was created and written by Karla Crome (Something Very Bad is Going to Happen). Storm Saulter (Better Mus’ Come, Sprinter) is the series director, with Mbatha-Raw leading alongside Jonny Lee Miller (The Crown, Elementary), Sheldon Shepherd (Bob Marley: One Love, Better Mus’ Come) and Bel Powley (A Small Light, The Morning Show). 

The series synopsis reads: Claudia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), an ambitious young bi‑racial lawyer, travels to Jamaica to challenge an inheritance claim made by a local man, Cudjoe East (Sheldon Shepherd), against Oliver Connaught (Jonny Lee Miller), a wealthy white aristocrat. But the case takes an unsettling turn when Claudia discovers that the disputed estate is the very place that has haunted her nightmares: Hope Hill, the Connaught family’s former plantation. 

As Claudia and Oliver dig deeper, they uncover a disturbing link between the plantation’s brutal past and the injustices still shaping the present. 

The wider series ensemble features Nadean Rawlins (Bob Marley: One Love, Sprinter), Sean Gilder (Mary & George, Slow Horses), Olunike Adeliyi (The Fire Inside, Mike), Richard Dillane (Wolf Hall, The Crown), Diveen Henry (The Day of the Jackal, Manhunt), Jack Bandeira (Happy Valley, Black Mirror), Shantol Jackson (Death in Paradise, Yardie), Jeff Crossley (Bob Marley: One Love, Sprinter), and Safina Simpson. 

Possession is produced by Snowed-In in association with Sky Studios. The series is based on an original story created by Jefferson Bannis. Executive Producers are Ruth Kenley-Letts, Jenny van der Lande, Neil Blair, Karla Crome, Storm Saulter, Sam Hoyle, Serena Thompson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Jonny Lee Miller. The Development Producer is Roxanne Harvey and the Series Producer is Kate Ogborn. 

The series will be available on Sky in the UK and Ireland. NBC is handling international sales. 

Check out the teaser above.