Richard, Annette, Sarah, and Jamie visited the University of Sussex on February 19th, 2020. Taking full advantage of their time, the team explored the Mass Observation archive at The Keep, with Jamie and Sarah taking the opportunity to read through a number 1930s and 40s letters written to Picturegoer Magazine. In the early afternoon, the team met members of The Keep’s archival staff to discuss digitisation and cataloguing processes, This proved to be very helpful, with the staff keen to stay in touch with us and happy to help with further queries.

Following a productive afternoon at The Keep, the team delivered a research seminar, which explored the aims and outputs of the CMDA project, to staff and students of the University’s School of Media, Film and Music. A number of interesting questions were asked by attendees, along with some useful suggestions that the team have taken on board as they move forward with the project.

Jamie was awarded a small AHRC bursary to attend AHTV, jointly hosted by the TV Foundation and the AHRC, which took place on February 5th, 2020 at the Barbican Centre, London. Here, Jamie was in the audience for a number of panels that touched upon how scholars and the TV industry can work together to create specialist factual television. Jamie also had a ‘speed meeting’ with Olivia Grigoriou, a Development Executive for the production company Fremantle, where the nature of ‘selling’ a television concept was discussed in more detail.