Disney+ Series ‘Rivals’ Scoops Royal Television Society Awards; ‘Industry’ Named Best Drama

Rivals, the Disney+ series about sex and scandal in the British television industry in the 1980s, was one of the big winners at the Royal Television Society (RTS) Progamme Awards.

At a ceremony in London on Tuesday, Danny Dyer took home Supporting Actor – Male for his role as electronics businessman Freddie Jones in the Jilly Cooper adaptation. It is his second prize in the space of a week after he won Best Actor at the Broadcasting Press Guild Awards.

Rivals writers Dominic Treadwell-Collins and Laura Wade won best Writer – Drama at the RTS awards, with judges praising the show’s “very distinctive tone and style.”

Elsewhere, HBO/BBC show Industry won best Drama Series in its third season. “A series with feature film production values and brilliant performances in which every story detail had a purpose,” judges said.

In other performance categories, Jessica Gunning continues her awards hot streak for Baby Reindeer, taking home Supporting Actor – Female. Anna Maxwell Martin won Leading Actor – Female for her role in ITV series Until I Kill You, while Lennie James was named best Leading Actor – Male for BBC’s Mr Loverman.

The RTS opened the evening by awarding a special prize to journalists in Gaza after the award was controversially dropped from the Television Journalism Awards earlier this month. Other special prizes included the Outstanding Achievement Award for The Traitors host Claudia Winkleman, while James Corden and Ruth Jones clinched the Judges’ Award after the success Gavin & Stacey: The Finale.

Full winners:

Arts

WINNER – My Sexual Abuse: The Sitcom (Swan Films for Channel 4)

“A profoundly compelling, challenging and genuinely innovative piece of work,” said the judges.

Nominees:

Breakthrough Award

WINNER – Josh Tedeku – Boarders (Studio Lambert for BBC)

The judges described the winner as “displaying all the characteristic hallmarks of a huge future star – a talent with a brilliant range that instantly draws the viewer in.”

Nominees:

Children’s Programme

WINNER – Quentin Blake’s Box of Treasures (Eagle Eye Productions for BBC)

“A clever, engaging piece of children’s television produced to absolute perfection,” said the judges.

Nominees:

Comedy Drama

WINNER – Alma’s Not Normal (Expectation for BBC)

The winning programme “navigates between the drama and comedy effortlessly, doing so with a refreshing and unique voice.”

Nominees:

Comedy Entertainment

WINNER – Junior Taskmaster (Avalon UK for Channel 4)

The winning show “is slick, fun and produced with great confidence and flair.”

Nominees:

Comedy Performance – Female

WINNER – Sophie Willan – Alma’s Not Normal (Expectation for BBC)

“A triumphant performance that succeeds on so many levels…she has true star quality,” said the judges.

Nominees:

Comedy Performance – Male

WINNER – Oliver Savell – Changing Ends (Baby Cow Productions for ITV1)

“A perfect performance of real nuance…and he has really great timing!” said the judges.

Nominees:

Daytime Programme

WINNER – Loose Women (ITV Studios Daytime for ITV1)

The winning programme “was highly informative, sensitively produced and showed a real respect for its audience.”

Nominees:

Documentary Series

WINNER – The Push: Murder on the Cliff (Candour Productions for Channel 4)

The judges described the winning series as “a deftly handled work which brought real emotional power to the story being told.”

Nominees:

Drama Series

WINNER – Industry (Bad Wolf for BBC in association with HBO)

“A series with feature film production values and brilliant performances in which every story detail had a purpose,” said the judges.

Nominees:

Entertainment

WINNER – The Traitors (Studio Lambert Scotland for BBC)

The winning show was described by the judges as “a piece of genius executed absolutely flawlessly.”

Nominees:

Entertainment Performance

WINNER – Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly – Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway (Lifted Entertainment (Part of ITV Studios) in co-production with Mitre Studios for ITV1)

“Polished, inclusive and with a complete commitment to the material and the audience,” said the judges.

Nominees:

Formatted Popular Factual

WINNER – Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams on Tour (South Shore Productions for BBC)

“This was audacious, ambitious and masterfully accomplished,” remarked the judges.

Nominees:

History

WINNER – Atomic People (Minnow Films for BBC)

The judges described the winning programme as “beautifully crafted…with interviews that were both intensely powerful and very moving.”

Nominees:

Leading Actor – Female

WINNER – Anna Maxwell Martin – Until I Kill You (World Productions for ITV1)

“A compelling, perfectly pitched performance in a genuinely challenging role,” commented the judges.

Nominees:

Leading Actor – Male

WINNER – Lennie James – Mr Loverman (Fable Pictures for BBC)

“An epic performance…what a masterclass in his craft he gave,” said the judges.

Nominees:

Limited Series and Single Drama

WINNER – This Town (Kudos, Nebulastar, co-produced with Mercury Studios, in association with Stigma Films for BBC)

“Like nothing else on television,” said the judges. “A multi-layered drama that was supremely well executed.”

Nominees:

Live Event

WINNER – D Day 80: Tribute to the Fallen (BBC Studios Event Productions for BBC)

The winning programme “got everything just right. A masterpiece of assured, high calibre television.”

Nominees:

Presenter

WINNER – Liz Carr – Better Off Dead? (Burning Bright Productions co-produced with the OU for BBC)

The winning presenter “showed tremendous honesty, candour and humour, genuinely immersing the viewer into their world.”

Nominees:

Science & The Natural World

WINNER – Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story (Silverback Films for National Geographic and Disney+)

The judges called the winning programme “a piece of mesmerising television, which successfully combined epic scale with a sense of intimacy in telling the story of its subject.”

Nominees:

Scripted Comedy

WINNER – Things You Should Have Done (Roughcut TV for BBC)

The judges were drawn to what they called “a piece which felt fresh, distinctive and very funny.”

Nominees:

Single Documentary

WINNER – Hell Jumper (Expectation for BBC)

“Viewers were taken on an unforgettable journey through brilliant, immersive storytelling,” said the judges.

Nominees:

Soap and Continuing Drama

WINNER – Casualty (BBC Studios Drama Productions for BBC)

The winning programme “has its own visual style and tells its stories with beautiful pace and emotional impact.”

Nominees:

Sports Presenter, Commentator or Pundit

WINNER – Rose Ayling-Ellis and Clare Balding – Paris 2024 Paralympics (Whisper for Channel 4)

“An incredible level of consummate professionalism combined with utterly unique insight,” said the judges. 

Nominees:

Sports Programme

WINNER – Paris 2024 Paralympics (Whisper for Channel 4)

“The coverage had three standout qualities,” said the judges. “It was innovative, inspirational and extraordinary.”

Nominees:

Supporting Actor – Female

WINNER – Jessica Gunning – Baby Reindeer (Clerkenwell Films for Netflix)

“A spectacular tour-de-force,” said the judges. “A performance that stays with the viewer for a long time.”

Nominees:

Supporting Actor – Male

WINNER – Danny Dyer – Rivals (Happy Prince, part of ITV Studios for Disney+)

The winner “gave a captivating performance of both real heart and vulnerability.”

Nominees:

Writer – Comedy

WINNER – Sophie Willan – Alma’s Not Normal (Expectation for BBC)

The judges described this work as “laugh-out-loud funny and richly written, where comedy was found in the smallest details.”

Nominees:

Writer – Drama

WINNER – Dominic Treadwell-Collins and Laura Wade – Rivals (Happy Prince, part of ITV Studios for Disney+)

The writing was described by judges as “bold and totally assured in its very distinctive tone and style.”

Nominees:

Judges’ Award

WINNER – James Corden and Ruth Jones

Presented by screenwriter, producer and director Richard Curtis

This is the best job in the world. It is real honour to present the Judges Award for “an outstanding contribution to British television with a particular focus on the impact made during the year”. And to present it – for their extraordinary work on Gavin & Stacey this year – to Ruth Jones & James Corden.

“Gavin & Stacey” is one of the great British sitcoms, and it reached its epic climax on Christmas Day last year. The received wisdom is that when sitcoms stray from their normal, gorgeous half hour length, they can get very woolly indeed – often featuring a holiday to Ibiza – but this Christmas Special  kept & ratcheted up everything that has been wonderful about the show that the public have loved since 2007 – ever funnier, deeper, more intense

Ruth & James – what a thing you have made. Always so many funny lines – big chunky comedy set-pieces – and such an epic range of characters, all funny & true and utterly  memorable – and this Christmas you completed everyone’s long, satisfying emotional story curve – even Chinese Alan got his moment. It’s  one of the best acted & cast shows I’ve ever seen – and two of the most brilliant performances were yours. But you also wrote the whole damn thing – and it feels like the work of really funny friends. James from London, Ruth from Wales – you combined those two cultures so perfectly, so adversarially, so comically. I think you love each other –  and make each other laugh – and what has been on screen is a real reflection of the perfect combination of you.

I like comedies with romance at their hearts – and Gavin and Stacey is not only a great British sitcom – it is the greatest British romantic comedy of all time. And it’s an education in acceptance, kindness, loyalty, and the importance of Indian takeaways.

It’s also lasted 17 years – how did you do that, stay friends, stay funny and end up with such a blissful bang?

The thing I most want to say is this – in the competitive world we live in, a lot of us sometimes forget to celebrate our basic job – which is to make people interested or exhilarated or just plain happy. TV is such an amazing filler of our time. Even the least watched TV programmes probably entertain more people than have ever watched the plays of Harold Pinter. We’re a mass media – and most of you all here tonight do a massively good job. In obsessing about viewing figures and competitive platforms and awards – although I love awards, obviously – we forget there are no real winners or losers – there’s just creative people giving people things to laugh at, be moved by, be educated by, be comforted by – morning, afternoon and night. So when the Gavin & Stacey finale went out – millions of us looked forward to it, and watched it – and by very simple maths – you and your team gave people in the UK 27 and three-quarter million happy hours. That’s a huge thing – that’s so much happiness – so many merry Christmas days hyper-charged and so many ghastly Christmas Day fixed right at the end.

Outstanding Achievement Award

WINNER – Claudia Winkleman

The Outstanding Achievement Award is presented to someone who has captured our hearts and has done so with an effortless warmth, wit, and, let’s be honest, a level of charm that makes the rest of us feel like we’ve accidentally shown up to a black-tie event in our gardening pyjamas. I’m talking about Claudia Winkleman.

We all know Claudia, or think we know her. She’s the host of The Traitors – a show that mixes mystery, deception, and betrayal with the kind of emotional depth that has you questioning your entire social circle. Then, of course, there’s Strictly Come Dancing, where she’s been a dazzling fixture for over 15 years, twice as long as Morecambe and Wise worked at the BBC, bringing joy to millions on Saturday nights. If Strictly were a movie, she would be the heartwarming character that everyone roots for – not the one who trips over the dance floor, but the one who makes you believe that, yes, even I could pull off a perfect foxtrot with just the right amount of determination and maybe a bit of help from the wardrobe department.

But Claudia’s journey didn’t start there. If you trace back through the years, you’ll find that Claudia has been a part of British television for decades. She didn’t just land on our screens like some sort of magical TV fairy. She worked her way up, quietly crafting a career that is as varied as it is impressive. She’s appeared on everything from This Morning to Talking Telephone Numbers to Liquid News and my favourite, God’s Gift. She’s hosted Sport Relief, Comic Relief, even The Great British Sewing Bee. She’s covered the Oscars, been the Nation’s film critic when she slipped effortlessly into Barry Norman and Jonathan Ross’s shoes. Over the last 30 years we’ve all come to rely on her unique voice and perspective. Which is extraordinary considering she is still only 27 years old.

Through it all, there’s been a consistency to Claudia’s presence. She doesn’t just “do” television. She brings something to it. It’s not only her effortless charm, or her wit, or her enviable ability to make every moment seem like it’s full of possibility – though, frankly, those are all hard to ignore. It’s the way she connects with people, the way she seems to understand that the best TV isn’t about being the loudest or the flashiest – it’s about being real. She makes the audience feel like they’re part of the conversation, like we’ve all just been invited into her living room, and we couldn’t be happier about it. And she makes the participants in shows like Strictly and Traitors feel safe – her off camera care and attention for cast and crew equally as important as her work on screen.

And then, of course, there’s that fringe. It’s the most famous fringe on television, a brilliant metaphor for the way Claudia herself exists in the world: effortlessly stylish, undeniably iconic, but always with just enough mystery to keep you intrigued.

But more than anything, Claudia’s charm lies in her ability to take the work seriously without ever taking herself too seriously. She’s willing to laugh at herself, to make light of her own mistakes, hide her deep intelligence, but without diminishing the quality of what she does. She has that rare ability to make us laugh and think, to entertain and move us, all at the same time.

Television Journalism Awards – Special Award

WINNER – Journalists in Gaza

For news organisations, the Middle East crisis poses an incredibly complex and fast-moving challenge.

With international journalists unable to operate in Gaza, covering this important news story has fallen to the local media teams based there. These individuals often face extraordinary danger reporting on events as they unfold.

This award is not dedicated to one person, one team or even a single news organisation, but recognises the courage and commitment of journalists risking their lives every day. Therefore, the Society would like to make the RTS Special Award for News and Journalism to Journalists in Gaza.