David Dimbleby chairs the programme from the Welsh capital which sees Former Shadow Welsh Secretary Peter Hain; Minister for Disabled People, Maria Miller; Leanne Wood, Leader of Plaid Cymru; Daily Mail columnist and former editor of The Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie, and author and comedy scriptwriter John O’Farrell, face questions from the audience.

To apply for a seat in the audience you can register your question at www.bbc.co.uk/questiontime

For further information please contact Louise Plank on 020 8995 3936 or lou@plankpr.com

Mentorn Media has produced Question Time since 1998 and the new contract will run for three years from September with David Dimbleby continuing to chair the programme from venues around the country. Production transferred to Mentorn Scotland last year.

Chief Executive, Mentorn Media, John Willis, said: “We’re absolutely delighted to secure the contract for a further three years. It’s well deserved recognition of the brilliant work of David Dimbleby and the Question Time team led by Editor Nicolai Gentchev and Executive Producer Steve Anderson.”

BBC Scotland’s Head of News, John Boothman, said the tender process had been competitive and rigorous, with all companies having sound proposals for the future of Question Time.

“We awarded the contract to Mentorn as they were able to demonstrate strong editorial leadership from Nicolai Gentchev and Steve Anderson and technical and editorial expertise to deliver this high-profile political debate programme,” he said.

Executive Producer, Steve Anderson, said: “Mentorn has helped to make Question Time one of the most important programmes on British television. In the lifetime of the current contract, we produced the memorable editions on the MPs’ expenses row, Hugh Grant appearing on the night of the closure of the News of the World plus, of course, the appearance of BNP leader Nick Griffin, watched by almost 10 million people.

“But politics has never been more fascinating and with a terrific new team in place, we are excited about how Question Time can enhance its reputation as the place where the public hold the decision makers to account.”

Nicolai Gentchev continues as Editor with Hayley Valentine as Executive Editor for BBC Scotland.

The announcement signals a period of expansion for Mentorn Scotland which recently celebrated its tenth year and is also currently responsible for BBC One series The Big Questions and Cowboy Trap. Production of BBC One series Motorway Cops and Traffic Cops, both made by Mentorn Media sister company, Folio, is also made from Mentorn Scotland.

For further information please contact Louise Plank on 020 8995 3936 or lou@plankpr.com

The BAFTA-nominated series is back to give some of Britain’s best young cooks the chance to follow in the footsteps of 2010 champion, Georgia Bradford, and become Junior MasterChef 2012.

Commissioned by Damian Kavanagh and Executive Produced for CBBC by Bridget Banton, the competition will once again aim to find and encourage talented young cooks who have a flair for making exceptional food from scratch.

Bridget Banton said: “We’re thrilled to be bringing Junior MasterChef back to CBBC and are looking forward to finding more talented young chefs this time around.  At CBBC we want to inspire children to think about and try new things, and this show really encourages them to do just that.”

Based on the hugely successful MasterChef series, the format will feature 15 half hour episodes, consisting of eight heats, two quarterfinals, four semis and a final cook-off.

The budding gastronomes, aged between nine and 12-years-old, will have the chance to wow the judges with their culinary magic, learning tricks of the trade along the way. The lucky finalists will face challenges to make their friends green with envy, following in the footsteps of the 2010 finalists, who cooked for the likes of the cast of Dr Who, children’s writer Jacqueline Wilson, and boy band JLS.

Executive producer for Shine, Karen Ross, said: “We are very excited about the return of Junior MasterChef. The first series’ contestants overwhelmed us with their level of cooking ability and enthusiasm and proved that the culinary ambition of 9 to 12 year olds is alive and well all over the British Isles. We eagerly await to see what masterpieces our next group will come up with!”

Applications are now open for the second series. Filming takes place in the school holidays this August in London and to apply children must be a UK resident, be aged between 9 and 12 on the 6^th August, and love cooking.

Junior MasterChef is being made for CBBC by Shine Television Limited. The Executive Producer for Shine is Karen Ross, and the series producer is Antonia Lloyd. The 15-part series will be broadcast on CBBC and BBC One later this year.

To apply applicants must download the application form at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/help/tvhelp/junior-masterchef.shtml

Closing date is Friday 15^th June.

For further information please contact Plank PR on 020 8995 3936 or bev@plankpr.com

In this brand new series pig farmer Jimmy Doherty goes inside Britain’s biggest supermarket to come up with radical and innovative new ideas to produce equally cheap but higher-welfare alternatives to some of their best-selling meat products: chicken Kievs, meatballs and ‘standard’ sausages.

Is it possible to make bargain mass-market products using only meat from animals raised to the highest welfare standards?

In a bold new experiment, Jimmy will work with Tesco and the farms and factories that supply them to discover how their best sellers are made, and then go on the hunt for the cheap, high-quality cuts that we don’t eat before trying to turn them into mass-market products that could appeal to the whole country.

The pressure is on, as Jimmy has to come up with his new prototypes in time for the spring launch, when Tesco will be trialling them in 200 stores all over Britain.
If Jimmy gets it right, he could change the way we eat and transform the market for high-welfare meat. But will Tesco allow Jimmy to launch his prototypes? And if so, will the public buy them?

Production company
Fresh One

White Heat screenwriter Paula Milne will write three part series, The Politician’s Husband, to be produced by Mentorn Media’s drama arm Daybreak Pictures. The hour-long episodes are for transmission next year.

Lucy Richer will executive produce for the BBC.  David Aukin is Executive Producer for Daybreak Pictures and Hal Vogel is producer.

The series was commissioned by BBC Two controller Janice Hadlow and drama head Ben Stephenson.

Hadlow said the series would be a “contemporary drama about the relationship between power, men, love, marriage, all those things.”

“It is quite fantastic,” she added.

Mentorn International will be distributing the drama.

For further information please contact Plank PR on 020 8995 3936 or email lou@plankpr.com

In 2010, James finished a phenomenal 12th in the Marathon de Sables (making him the highest placed Briton in its 25 year history). He had already entered the race ‘for fun’ when the Discovery Channel decided it was something that needed filming. Subsequently, he turned his attentions to a new challenge, James Cracknell Takes on America- racing to cycle, run, row and swim from LA to New York in record time. It was during this trip that James suffered a near fatal accident after being struck from behind by a truck while cycling through Arizona. After a difficult six-month recovery period, James went to the Canadian Yukon, completing The Coldest Race on Earth. These stunning adventures transmitted as ‘Unstoppable: The James Cracknell Trilogy’ on Discovery in April 2011.

When not crossing oceans and continents, James is in demand as an entertaining corporate, motivational and after dinner speaker and is an ambassador for Adidas and BMW. He is married to journalist and broadcaster Beverley Turner, with one young son Croyde, a daughter Kiki and they recently welcomed another baby, Trixie. His more sedate activities include a ten-year post as a Daily Telegraph journalist; Olympic presenter for ITV News at Ten in Bejing, and presenter of Channel 4’s Red Bull Air Race and ITV 1’s British Superbikes. James was appointed Sustainability Ambassador by the London Organising Committee of the 2012 Olympic Games (LOCOG). Chosen for his ability to articulate the key areas to combating climate change to a wide audience, James was actively involved in advising on policy issues. He is also a founding partner of sports marketing company Threshold.

In 2009, he canoed the historical Devizes to Westminster race, cycled in The Tour de France’s Etape, rode a rickshaw from Edinburgh to London with friend Ben Fogle for The Pride of Britain Awards and completed his second sub 3 hour marathon, this time in New York – no mean feat for a man who is 6’4” and weighs 100 kilos!

Prior to this, James took part in his – then – toughest journey to date with Ben Fogle and Dr. Ed Coats – The Amundsen Omega3 South Pole Race in December 2008. Suffering frost-bite, infected blisters, dramatic weight-loss, pneumonia and exhaustion, the team traversed the 473.6 miles and were only beaten by a pair of Norwegian polar experts. The BBC showed a 6 x 1 hour, prime-time Sunday night series of the adventure in summer 2009 On Thin Ice. The show was hugely popular. The series was accompanied by a self-penned book of the journey, Race to the Pole (MacMillan).

James had first teamed up with Ben in 2005 when they set off in a 7m boat to race across The Atlantic. Despite their ocean-rowing inexperience, the pair were first to arrive in Antigua after 49 torturous days at sea, On their return, James and Ben wrote the critically acclaimed The Crossing and the BBC transmitted RTS award-winning documentary series Through Hell and High Water. Having raised funds for Children in Need during the race, James was asked by the BBC to set out on a journey in which he rowed The English Channel; cycled through France and Spain and finally swam The Strait of Gibraltar, accompanied by comedian David Walliams. It took him a mere ten days to cover just under 1500 miles and raise £340,000 for Sport Relief.

James has also managed to fit in a whole host of other physical feats: the inaugural Deloitte Ride Across Britain, The London to Paris bike ride (2008) The New Zealand Coast to Coast race (2007), The Mark Webber Challenge (2006), setting a new world record for paddling The Channel on a surf-board (2005) and he is qualified to represent Great Britain in Triathlon competing at the 2009 European Championships.

The new series, World’s Toughest Expeditions with James Cracknell is currently transmitting on Sundays at 9pm on Discovery Channel.

David Dimbleby chairs the programme from the capital which sees Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith MP; Labour’s Deputy Leader Harriet Harman MP; former leader of the Liberal Democrats Ming Campbell MP; leader of the PCS union Mark Serwotka, and the businessman and star of Dragons’ Den Theo Paphitis, face questions from the audience.

To apply for a seat in the audience you can register your question at www.bbc.co.uk/questiontime or call the audience line on 01299 829 299

For further information please contact Louise Plank on 020 8995 3936 or lou@plankpr.com

It’s the final on Maestro At The Opera and after another well-known personality has left the competition, the remaining two would-be-conductors go head-to-head in the quest to master the ultimate art form – Opera.

The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden opens its doors for the last time as the two finalists battle it out for the ultimate prize – the chance to conduct a whole act of a legendary opera at the world famous Royal Opera House, in front of a discerning audience of over two thousand.

There can only be one winner; there can only be one Maestro At The Opera.

For further information, interviews and DVDs please contact Beverly Comboy on 020 995 3936 or bev@plankpr.com

The first series, which consisted of four hour-long programmes entitled World’s Scariest Plane Landings, World’s Scariest Near Misses, World’s Greatest Heroes and World’s Greatest Daredevils transmitted earlier this year in the 8pm slot. The first in the series, World’s Scariest Plane Landings consolidated at 2.1 million and a 7.6% share.

The second series was ordered by Michelle Chappell, Commissioning Editor for News, Current Affairs and Documentaries at Channel 5, following the success of the first.

Series two will see four further one-hour programmes entitled World’s Scariest Flights, World’s Scariest Animal Attacks, World’s Scariest Drivers and World’s Scariest Weather. The series will air in May on Channel 5.

Channel 5′s Commissioning Editor for News, Current Affairs and Documentaries, Michelle Chappell said, “These programmes are made with incredible user generated content and contributors from all over the world. It’s real-life, but at its most extreme, all captured on camera.”

Mentorn Media’s Executive Producer for Popular Factual, Matt Holden said, “We’re delighted a second series of World’s Scariest has been commissioned so soon after the first which drew some incredible audience numbers and we hope to replicate this success again.”

World’s Scariest is a Mentorn Media production and the series producer is Amy Walker. Mentorn International will be distributing the programme.

For further information please contact Plank PR on 0208 995 3936 sally@plankpr,com

World’s Scariest Drivers provides all the twists and turns of a high octane police chase.  All hell breaks loose in the quiet town of Granby, Colorado, when Marvin Heemyer takes to his customised Bulldozer and demolishes 23 buildings in its path, leaving the police powerless against his DIY armoured car.  We hear eye witness account from cops at the scene, and not to be outdone, we follow an extreme joyrider who steals – a tank!

Through incredible eye-witness footage we follow a hit and run driver to justice, and see a man’s life change in a single moment as a speeding car smashes through the plate glass café window he is sitting next to, pushing him across the room and pinning him to the bar.

We witness a taxi passenger’s terror as her cab driver takes her the wrong way up a busy motorway playing Russian roulette with her journey and her life, and we’re on the wrong side of road rage in the UK and overseas when motorists and cyclists get all revved up.

We see the graphic moment when a speeding motorcyclist loses control – in the spin of a wheel a thrillseeking day out turns into a desperate attempt to save a life in the US.  Back in the UK we experience the highs and lows of caravan banger racing and witness the world’s scariest parking.

With witness testimony and expert comment from Vicky Butler Henderson, World’s Scariest Drivers is a fierce and graphic account of some of the most extreme driving out there.

World’s Scariest Drivers will have you backseat driving from the safety of your sofa – strap yourself in for the ride.