Rick Murray
Shine North has recruited Rick Murray and Frank Smalley to joined its Manchester-based team, as executive producer and producer respectively.
The pair most recently worked on Racing Legends at BBC North which aired on BBC2 at the end of 2012.
Murray has been making factual entertainment television for over a decade. His career started at LWT Factual, casting and shooting for the ‘Uncovered’ brand ‘Temptation Island’ before moving to be a Producer/Director at RDF on Wife Swap. Recent credits include Peter Jones Meets (BBC2), Beyond Walford (BBC Three), Hai Karate (CBBC), and Racing Legends, a format Murray created and which featured Sir Chris Hoy, Sir Patrick Stewart and James Martin.
Smalley has spent the last decade working on a wide range of entertainment shows including as Harry Hill’s TV Burp, Ant and Dec’s Game Show Marathon and Noel’s Christmas Presents; quiz shows such as The Weakest Link and Are You Smarter Than a 10 Year Old? and factual entertainment projects Marco Pierre’s Kitchen Wars, Call Me A Cabbie for ITV and Racing Legends, the latter two working with Murray.
Shine opened its Shine North division in Manchester in 2006 and the Manchester operation has been responsible for 75 hours of TV across 14 series in the region to date.
Alex Connock
Last September, the team relocated into dock10 studios at MediaCityUK from offices on Whitworth Street in the city centre.
Its most recent production was the production of Jonathan Phang’s Caribbean Cookbook for the Food Network and World Class for the Travel Channel, which was subsequently broadcast by over 150 broadcasters globally.
Alex Connock, the former chief executive of publishing and broadcast production company Ten Alps, joined Shine last year as its director of new business across the UK and was also given responsibility for heading up the Northern base.
He said: “Both Rick and Frank are creative and established programme makers who will make great additions to the Shine North team.”
