Geldof buys documentary maker behind 'The Falklands War'

Bob Geldof predicted an end to the boom in Big Brother and other reality television shows yesterday, saying a shift was under way back to high-quality factual programming.

Bob Geldof predicted an end to the boom in Big Brother and other reality television shows yesterday, saying a shift was under way back to high-quality factual programming.

His comments came as his media company, Ten Alps Communications, paid £1.03m for Blakeway Productions, the TV documentary maker behind shows such as Channel 4's The Falklands War and The Queen's Story made for ITV.

"Times are changing fast in the British TV industry, particularly at the BBC, and we believe there is a shift from the lifestyle TV which dominated the past five years, back to higher quality factual material," he said. "It's about time, too. People want to see reality on TV, rather than yet more reality TV."

The deal to buy Blakeway will expand Ten Alps's documentary film making operation, which already includes production companies such as 3BM TV which made Ten Days to D-Day currently showing on Channel 4.

Alex Connock, chief executive of Ten Alps, said the company's hunch that reality TV was on the wane in favour of more high-quality factual programming was borne out by the stock market. "If you look at our share price it has gone up by 3.8 times in the last year. That is my supporting evidence for the case that the market believes our contention that there is a case to be made for factual TV," he said.

Blakeway is the third documentary maker bought by Ten Alps since 2002 in a bid to become the UK's leader in factual TV.