Thursday 24 August 2017 Multi-award winning broadcaster UKTV today announced it has commissioned two series of NHS Rescue Squad (w/t) from Air Television for its free-to-air channel Really. It has also ordered an additional two series of Helicopter ER from the 2017 Yorkshire RTS region winner, Air Television.
NHS Rescue Squad, a 20 x 60 episode order, is a land-mark in British television - the Yorkshire Ambulance Service is the first in the UK to grant access to its Hazardous Area Response Team (HART). Its one of 15 specialist medical units set up after the 7/7 London bombings to treat badly injured patients in extreme environments.
The unprecedented access will allow viewers to see the camaraderie and courage of men and women who risk their lives to save ours. They are trained to enter burning buildings, deal with the victims of terrorist attacks, brave toxic gas clouds and abseil to the rescue down cliff faces.
The series will also capture the banter in the mess hall and the blood sweat and tears of a training regime that demands high levels of physical fitness and skills ranging from nuclear decontamination to using high-speed flood relief boats.
The teams advanced medical capabilities allow them to perform surgical procedures in a range of locations from the street to the cramped confines of a collapsed building or down a Pennine pothole, keeping patients alive long enough to reach specialised medical care.
The Air production team will also be among the first to use drone cameras at real emergency scenes thanks to a ground-breaking agreement with ambulance and fire service officers. Air Television has already captured dramatic footage of a major fire, a river rescue and several major road accidents.
The additional two 15 x 60 series of Helicopter ER will continue to follow the work of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance as its paramedics, doctors and pilots respond to accidents and emergencies across the UKs biggest county.
NHS Rescue Squad and Helicopter ER were ordered by Really general manager, Luke Hales and UKTV director of commissioning, Richard Watsham. They were commissioned by commissioning editor Arch Dyson for UKTV.
The series producer for Air Television on NHS Rescue Squad and Helicopter ER is Matt Richards and executive producers are Arch Dyson for UKTV and Ian Cundall and Andy Joynson for Air Television. NHS Rescue Squad and Helicopter ER are currently in pre-production and will transmit in 2018.
Luke Hales, general manager, Really, said:
After the success of Helicopter ER we are delighted to be working with Air Television on the unprecedented series, NHS Rescue Squad, as well as a further two series of Helicopter ER. The Really viewers have come to expect high-octane blue light documentaries from us and I am sure this will raise the bar with non-stop action making for unmissable viewing.
Ian Cundall, executive producer, Air Television said: We believe the footage gathered by our drone, bodycameras and embedded shooting PDs will add to the very real drama of many incidents and allow viewers to understand the technical difficulty of many of the HART teams rescues.
Andy Joynson, co-executive producer, Air Television added: Were excited to bring the extraordinary lives of Yorkshires amazing medics to the screen.
Arch Dyson, commissioning editor, UKTV said:
We have had a big drive in the commissioning team to remain very focused in what we would like our shows to offer on Really. NHS Rescue Squad is testament to how far we have come. Air Television has supported us from the beginning of our commissioning journey on Really and I am thrilled that we will be working with them on this extraordinary new series.
UKTVs free-to-air channel Really has established itself as the home of real-life programming. Real-life rescue is a key content pillar, alongside crime, paranormal and lifestyle programming. Really saw success with its UKTV Originals in 2016, Helicopter ER series premiere reached an audience of 3.3m individuals and Cops UK: Body Cam Squad debuted with an audience of 233k individuals.
Notes to editors: For more information please contact:
Annabel Rudden at Plank PR: annabel@plankpr.com/ 020 8995 3936
About Really Sky 155, Virgin 129, Freeview 17, BT, TalkTalk 017 & Freest 160. On demand on UKTV Play
Really is a leading real life TV channel, offering viewers an exhilarating, emotional roller coaster of programming. Championing astounding documentaries, real life crime stories and lifestyle programming plus premier paranormal content. Free to air channel Really offers a compelling variety of real life and lifestyle favourites including documentaries such as Embarrassing Bodies, Helicopter Heroes, I Survived Evil and One Born Every Minute, lifestyle titles such as Homes Under The Hammer, DIY SOS and Escape to the Country as well as being the leading paranormal broadcaster with titles such as Paranormal Witness, Most Haunted and Ghost Adventures.
About UKTV UKTV is a commercial broadcaster reaching over 41m viewers every month.
The award-winning independent has eleven imaginative brands - UKTV Play, Dave, W, Gold, Alibi, Yesterday, Drama, Really, Home, Eden and Good Food. These include the two most popular non-PSB channels in the UK and account for nearly 10% of the British commercial TV market. The companys most recent financial results showed record-breaking year-end revenue of £344.8m and EBITDA of £91.3m. It invested £151.2m in programming and related launches last year, and is a significant investor in British creativity.
The network embraces technology to deliver inspired channels to audiences through Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, BT, TalkTalk, YouView, Freesat, Amazon Fire and UKTV Play, and distributes its highly valued original programmes to 200 territories.
Now celebrating over 20 years at the forefront of digital television, UKTV - an independe
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Thursday 24 August 2017 Multi-award winning broadcaster UKTV today announced it has commissioned two series of NHS Rescue Squad (w/t) from Air Television for its free-to-air channel Really. It has also ordered an additional two series of Helicopter ER from the 2017 Yorkshire RTS region winner, Air Television.
