Richard Hopkins, who has died aged 47, produced Big Brother and was the co-creator of Strictly Come Dancing, Britain’s most popular television programme; as such he fundamentally changed not just what we watch but also who we consider a “star”.
Richard Hopkins weith his second wife, Katy
Hopkins started spearheading the “reality revolution” in British television in 2000, when he produced the Bafta award-winning first series of Big Brother.
The programme featured a group of ordinary people thrown together for two months, under the constant surveillance of cameras which recorded every ill-judged hissy fit or snatched kiss. By moulding such developments into compelling storylines, Hopkins caught the attention of a huge audience. A whole new category of “celebrity” was defined, spawning in turn a subsidiary industry of gossip magazines and websites.
But Hopkins’s most significant contribution was still to come. For the format behind Strictly — as the programme’s millions of devotees prefer to call it — has come to dominate popular television around the world.
The show matches celebrities with professional dancers, who each week are challenged to learn a different dance. A flamboyant judging panel and the voting viewers then decide which couple should be eliminated. Viewing figures for the first series in 2004 soon topped seven million, making it the BBC’s most successful light entertainment launch for more than a decade.
Garlanded with awards, Strictly Come Dancing is now recognised as Britain’s most successful reality television format, overshadowing its Saturday night ITV rival, The X Factor. As a flagship brand for the BBC, it has been sold to more than 30 countries, including America where, as Dancing With The Stars, some broadcasts attract almost 30 million viewers. Such is the format’s popularity that audience share in destinations from Slovakia to Finland regularly reaches more than 60 per cent.
Exactly who thought up the idea, however, is a matter of some debate. Hopkins said the idea for a programme of celebrity ballroom dancing came to him as he luxuriated in a jacuzzi at the gym of the Landmark Hotel, Marylebone, in 2003. “Why not bring back Come Dancing — but with celebrities?” was the gist of his eureka moment.
The following morning he went into a brainstorming meeting at the BBC with the idea still forming in his head. He had already thought of a working title: Pro-Celebrity Dancing. But his pitch was rejected.
The idea got traction only after a trawl of old television shows to see if any could be revived or revisited. When Fenia Vardanis, an entertainment executive, suggested revamping Come Dancing, first broadcast in 1949 and noted for its taffeta, tangoes and tears, Jane Lush, then head of BBC entertainment, remembered Hopkins’s idea, and told him to work it up into a detailed proposal. Hopkins and Fenia Vardanis are now credited as the show’s co-creators, with its eventual title melding the glamour of Come Dancing with the maverick approach of the young dancers in the 1992 film Strictly Ballroom.
Richard England Hopkins was born on December 15 1964 at Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, where his family ran a scrap metal business. He was a boarder at Bedford School and went on to University College, London, where he graduated in English Literature. After briefly working for a publisher, he moved into radio, starting as a reporter for Kiss FM, then a pirate station, before moving to the South of France and a presenter’s job on Sunshine Radio at Antibes. He stayed on the Cote d’Azur as a presenter at Skyrock Radio before returning to Britain to work on the black music station WNK.
His break into television came in the early 1990s, as a producer on The Big Breakfast, made by Planet 24 for Channel 4. Such was Hopkins’s success that Planet 24 sent him to run its office in Los Angeles, where he also conducted live red carpet interviews with Hollywood film stars at premieres and launches.
Joining the independent production company Endemol, Hopkins was executive producer on Fame Academy. But it was after the company’s Dutch subsidiary came up with Big Brother that his career really took off . As his reputation grew he was headhunted in 2003 by the BBC, taking the helm of the format entertainment department, in charge of such programmes as The Weakest Link, Mastermind and A Question Of Sport.
In 2006 Hopkins left the BBC to launch his own company, Fever Media, with David Mortimer. Over the past six years the company has made programmes for broadcasters in Britain and around the world.
Richard Hopkins, who was diagnosed with a brain tumour last June, was divorced from his French first wife, Cecile Couillet, with whom he had two daughters. They survive him, as does Katy McLachlan, whom he married last year, and with whom he had a third daughter.
Richard Hopkins, born December 15 1964, died January 7 2012
The following morning he went into a brainstorming meeting at the BBC with the idea still forming in his head. He had already thought of a working title: Pro-Celebrity Dancing. But his pitch was rejected.
The idea got traction only after a trawl of old television shows to see if any could be revived or revisited. When Fenia Vardanis, an entertainment executive, suggested revamping Come Dancing, first broadcast in 1949 and noted for its taffeta, tangoes and tears, Jane Lush, then head of BBC entertainment, remembered Hopkins’s idea, and told him to work it up into a detailed proposal. Hopkins and Fenia Vardanis are now credited as the show’s co-creators, with its eventual title melding the glamour of Come Dancing with the maverick approach of the young dancers in the 1992 film Strictly Ballroom.
Richard England Hopkins was born on December 15 1964 at Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, where his family ran a scrap metal business. He was a boarder at Bedford School and went on to University College, London, where he graduated in English Literature. After briefly working for a publisher, he moved into radio, starting as a reporter for Kiss FM, then a pirate station, before moving to the South of France and a presenter’s job on Sunshine Radio at Antibes. He stayed on the Cote d’Azur as a presenter at Skyrock Radio before returning to Britain to work on the black music station WNK.
His break into television came in the early 1990s, as a producer on The Big Breakfast, made by Planet 24 for Channel 4. Such was Hopkins’s success that Planet 24 sent him to run its office in Los Angeles, where he also conducted live red carpet interviews with Hollywood film stars at premieres and launches.
Joining the independent production company Endemol, Hopkins was executive producer on Fame Academy. But it was after the company’s Dutch subsidiary came up with Big Brother that his career really took off . As his reputation grew he was headhunted in 2003 by the BBC, taking the helm of the format entertainment department, in charge of such programmes as The Weakest Link, Mastermind and A Question Of Sport.
In 2006 Hopkins left the BBC to launch his own company, Fever Media, with David Mortimer. Over the past six years the company has made programmes for broadcasters in Britain and around the world.
Richard Hopkins, who was diagnosed with a brain tumour last June, was divorced from his French first wife, Cecile Couillet, with whom he had two daughters. They survive him, as does Katy McLachlan, whom he married last year, and with whom he had a third daughter.
Richard Hopkins, born December 15 1964, died January 7 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment