RDF Media

Above: the offices of RDF media in Kensington Village (which is a sort of gated business community in a seedy part of west London – ad agency Leo Burnett also has offices there). While Andrea went into RDF to “negotiate” I had a coffee in the little coffee shop and looked at the women (they were all women) exercising in the gym (big windows, so you couldn’t help but look at them). The architecture of Kensington Village is self-consciously recherché and without merit.

RDF is a television production company (or rather a group of production companies). It was founded by David Frank in 1993. David Frank had a background of working on Newsnight, Panorama and the Six O’Clock News. He has squandered this high-minded reputation by giving British television garbage such as Wife Swap, Ladette to Lady and Location Location Location. Chief of Operations at RDF is Joely Fether. RDF was also responsible for the fakery scandal involving photographer Annie Leibovitz and the Queen.

About 490 people are employed by the group in the United Kingdom.

The share price of RDF fell like a stone after the fakery scandal involving the Queen. David Frank has responded by attempting to take the company private again. He was being advised by failed Icelandic bank Landsbanki, so possibly things are in a bit of a mess at the moment.

Wife Swap is probably the group’s best known production to date. It is a formulaic “reality” show in which the female heads of two families “swop” lives for about two weeks. These swops are deliberately contrived, and usually involve hard-working working class mum of seven children swapping with an indolent spoilt childless middle-class lady of leisure (or alternatively a council-house-dwelling unemployed Waynetta Slob type who swops with a house-proud media executive and mother of two perfect children).

Incredibly Wife Swap won the Golden Rose of Montreux in 2004.

More: http://www.rdfmedia.com/

Waynetta Slob: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/ilove/years/1990/gallery/harry.shtml