Media: Hat Trick award: Talk of the Trade

HAT TRICK, the independent television production company, is awarded third place today in the Independent Top 100 for business achievement, and simultaneously announces that it is moving into movies. Flushed with the success of its TV comedies Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Drop The Dead Donkey and Have I Got News For You?, the founders are setting up Hat Trick Films. The company, which started out seven years ago with a payroll of one and now has 11 TV shows in hand and a turnover in excess of pounds 7m, will specialise in 'modestly budgeted comedy'.