Speaker Kate Beal
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With offices in London, Hampshire and Bristol, Woodcut Media, is one of the leading Indies in the UK, producing a broad range of factual programming. A leading true-crime producer (The Killer Within, Murdered at First Sight, Murder at My Door with Kym Marsh, The Beverley Allitt Tapes, The Killer in My Family, World’s Most Evil Killers), Woodcut’s growing catalogue also includes specialist factual series (A Royal Guide To, Britain’s Forgotten Wars with Tony Robinson, Tony Robinson’s VE Day: Minute by Minute, The Secret History of World War II and the hit ‘Combat’ franchise, Combat Ships, Combat Trains, Combat Machines), premium docs (Fiennes: Return to the Nile ( Joseph and Sir Ranulph Fiennes), Cut From A Different Cloth and Mandela, My Dad and Me featuring Idris Elba, and The Ivy) factual entertainment shows (How Hacks Work, Around the World in 80 Tricks, Paranormal Captured etc). Woodcut works with multiple broadcasters worldwide such as Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky, National Geographic, Smithsonian Channel, Discovery, CI, HISTOIRE TV etc. Towards the end of 2020 and as part of the company’s continued expansion, Woodcut launched Woodcut International, a new distribution division focusing on the global sales of select Woodcut Media factual series. Woodcut continues to work with existing and new third-party distributors. A month later Kate Beal’s Woodcut Media also merged with Spark TV to launch Woodcut West, a new Bristol-based production operation spearheaded by award-winning producer Paul Wooding, which specialises in natural history and high-end specialist factual. www.woodcutmedia.com
Kate is a prominent and inspirational speaker (keynotes/panels) at numerous markets such as MipDoc/Mipcom, Content London, Realscreen, Televisual Factual Festival, etc and was an Advisory Board Member for Realscreen Summit 2020. She is a member of the British Screen Forum and sits on the PACT council. She is a published author with The Krays: The Prison Years. Operating Woodcut as a very diverse and multi-cultural entity, she also focuses on mentoring young talent, and some years ago established the Woodcut Post-Production Award scheme, working closely with Southampton University to offer university grads the opportunity to get paid trained work as editors. This successful scheme also led to the introduction of the Woodcut Media Production Management Award in 2021.
Kate Beal entered the TV industry at just 15 years old, and her impressive list of achievements and expertise spans 26 years. Her foray into the business began when she joined UK broadcaster ITV as a runner in 1995, and worked her way up the ladder, learning all aspects of the production business. Her talent and ambition took her from researcher, to producer/director, culminating in the shooting of her first ever show as series producer Firefighters for ITV, when she was just 25 years old. Over the years, she worked on a variety of productions, with credits for popular programmes such as The Real London's Burning for Channel 5, and ITV’s 'That’s Esther’ and 'Faith and the City' (which is still used within schools today as a top-rated educational tool). It was in 2005 that she founded KMB Productions Ltd (a niche factual entertainment entity), producing acclaimed series such as Vicars’ Wives for ITV1 and By Royal Appointment for ITV. Then in 2008, entertainment and kids’ specialist Talent Group PLC, approached Ms. Beal to buy her company, and later that year KMB became Talent TV South. With Kate still continuing at the helm, her management and direction saw Talent TV South go from strength to strength, producing hit shows for broadcasters such as Tina Malone: Pregnant at 50 for TLC UK (the highest-rated single doc commission for the channel to date), Fred Dinenage: Murder Casebook a long-running, and very popular series for the Crime and Investigation Network, The Flying Winemakers for UK TV and more. Over the years she also developed strong partnerships with distributors such as DRG, Red Arrow Studios, Kew Media, TCB Media Rights and Keshet International, to mention just a few. Talent TV South later rebranded as Woodcut Media in 2014.
Speaking on: Trendwatch: What’s Next in M&A