Cranford leads with seven nominations*
Jimmy McGovern receives his seventh BAFTA nomination*
It’s Bebo v iPlayer*
Britain’s first dedicated online drama achieves two nominations*

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts has today announced the nominations for the forthcoming British Academy Television Craft Awards which will honour the unsung heroes behind the scenes of television and new media on Sunday 11 May 2008 at The Dorchester in London.

Leading the way with seven nominations is BBC One’s costume drama serial Cranford. Close on its heels with five nominations each are Channel 4’s unsettling single drama Boy A, E4’s teenage drama series Skins and BBC One’s cult sci-fi hit, Doctor Who. Channel 4’s China’s Stolen Children – A Dispatches Special has four nominations.

Jimmy McGovern who won for The Street at last year’s Television Awards, receives his seventh BAFTA nomination in the Writer category, again for The Street. He faces competition from five-time nominee Tony Marchant for The Mark of Cain, and from Steven Moffat for Doctor Who and Heidi Thomas for her adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s five-part drama Cranford.

Another multiple nominee is Adrian Shergold who receives his seventh nomination in the Director Fiction/Entertainment category for Persuasion, up against Boy A’s John Crowley, The Mark of Cain’s Marc Munden and Otto Bathurst for Five Days.

With three nominations, Bebo leads the way in the interactive arena which comprises three categories dedicated to new media. The Interactive Innovation – Service/Platform category sees the BBC iPlayer pitted against Bebo’s Open Platform and its KateModern Channel Profile, which enables users to interact with the cast of this first-ever episodic online drama series created specifically for broadcast on a UK-based social network site. Channel 4’s Big Art Mob completes the nominations in this category. KateModern is also nominated in Interactive Content, up against Spooks Interactive, Emmerdale Online and Skins.

The Break-through Talent category has seen an interesting turn of events; with a fresh approach to the creative process of script writing, the Skins ‘Writers Group’ includes a host of younger ‘contributors’, musicians, comedians and artists; at the other end of the spectrum is nominee Jezza Neumann, who almost single-handedly directed, edited, filmed and sound-recorded his undercover investigation into China’s Stolen Children. Also nominated is first-time television writer Mark O’Rowe, for his adaptation of Jonathan Trigell’s acclaimed novel Boy A about the attempted rehabilitation of a child murderer. The fourth nominee in this category is the writer/producer and director Patrick Reams, for his drama documentary A Very British Sex Scandal, based on the 1950’s homosexual witch hunts.

This year’s Special Award honours the dynamic writing duo David Croft and Jimmy Perry whose slate of work is testament to their extraordinary creative contribution to television. They are one of the most successful comedy sitcom-writing partnerships whose credits include such classics as Dad’s Army, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum and Hi-de-Hi!

This year’s Awards see 76 different programmes and platforms competing for the coveted BAFTA mask. The skills recognised include those for Editing, Costume Design, Titles, Make-up, Hair and Production Design, Direction, Music, Writing, Photography, Sound and Online creativity. As a result, these unique Awards see a diverse range of programmes competing within each category. Highlights this year include The Mighty Boosh versus Cranford, Five Days and Boy A in Editing Fiction/Entertainment; Grand Designs versus Earth: The Power of the Planet, China’s Stolen Children and The Seven Sins of England in Director Factual; Life On Mars versus My Boy Jack, Cranford and Britz in Production Design; Rugby Union versus Primeval, Skins and Life on Mars for Titles and Rome versus Doctor Who, Fight For Life and Primeval in Visual Effects.

The British Academy Television Craft Awards have attracted a record number of sponsors this year, including Sony Pictures Television International for Director Fiction/Entertainment, Media City:UK for Breakthrough Talent, Pepper Post Production for Editing Fiction/Entertainment, Men-From-Mars for Production Design, Autodesk for Visual Effects, Munro Accoustics for Sound Fiction/Entertainment and Hotcam for Photography & Lighting Fiction & Entertainment.

This year’s ceremony promises to attract a wide range of talent; previous presenters have included Bob Geldof, Emilia Fox, David Jason, Philip Glennister, Michael Palin, Catherine Tate, Richard Briars, David Grey, Joan Armatrading, and Jim Broadbent.

See the full list of nominations.

About BAFTA

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts supports, develops and promotes the art forms of the moving image by identifying and rewarding excellence, inspiring practitioners and benefiting the public.

For further information on this year’s event please contact:
Deborah Goodman @ DGPR
Tel: 0208 959 9980 / 07958 611218 Fax: 0208 959 7875
Email: [email protected]