Latest News from BBC Writers - Autumn 2024

Jess Loveland gives an update on what we've been up to over the last few months.

One of my favourite parts of this job is meeting a new group of writers as they join us at the start of one of our development groups. Earlier this week it was the turn of the Scripted 24/25 group (the group formerly known as Drama Room). These 12 talented writers were selected following our Open Call, which closed last December. It must feel like a long wait for the group before they finally arrive at the doors of BBC Broadcasting House, but in that Open Call we received a record-breaking number of submissions (just shy of 5000) and it takes us several months to get through the reading process. 

The first ten pages of every script we receive through the Open Call are read by one of our team of freelance script readers, with the most promising moving through various stages until we’ve narrowed the submissions down to around 30, with the writers invited to an interview with us in June/July for a potential place in Scripted. These interviews are an opportunity for us to find out more about each writer, their work so far, their passion for television, and what type of stories they are burning to tell. So, as you can see it’s a pretty exhaustive process and the writers who eventually make it into the Scripted group should be very proud of their achievement.

This group will stay with us for a year. The first six months involve taking part in a programme of webinars and workshops exploring the craft of screenwriting and the industry as a whole. They are then paired up with a Script Editor to develop and write a new original television ‘spec’ script which they can use as a calling card to the industry at the conclusion of the programme. We’ll announce this group at the end of their year on Scripted. Keep your eyes open for the announcement of the previous 23/24 Scripted group, who will be finishing with us soon. We can’t wait to tell you about them!

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