Adam Wood
Adam has devised and executive produced formats including the Emmy Award winning Cash Cab (over 9000 episodes worldwide), The Underdog: Josh Must Win (E4), Release The Hounds (ITV2), Landmark (Sky Arts), Carnage (Sky One), Bigheads (ITV), Playing It Straight (Channel 4), The Code (BBC1), Plain Jane (MTV), Singing In The Rainforest (Watch), Move Like Michael Jackson (BBC3), Man V Fly (GSN), The Exit List (ITV), Gerry’s Big Decision (Channel 4) and To Catch A Thief (BBC1).
Previous jobs include founder and MD of Gogglebox Entertainment, Head of Entertainment at Lion Television, Head of Entertainment at Endemol UK and Head of Development at Planet 24 where he led the team that created Survivor, one of the most successful international formats of all time.
Before that, Adam was the co-creator and launch producer of the long-running series Gamesmaster, and the object of Terry Christian’s scorn as a producer on the very first series of The Word.
Mat Steiner
As co-founder and MD of Primal Media and prior to that Gogglebox Entertainment, Mat has devised/co-devised and executive produced a wide range of multi award-winning shows including: Alan Must Win (E4), Landmark (Sky Arts), Carnage (Sky One), Bigheads (ITV), Release the Hounds (ITV/Fox/Int), Jerk (BBC3), Man V Fly (GSN/multiple territories); The Unseen Frankie Howard (C4), The Ideas Exchange (BBC/Bloomberg), Gerry’s Big Decision (C4), Breakaway (BBC2), Plain Jane (MTV), The Untold Tommy Cooper (C4), Move Like Michael Jackson (BBC3), Trust Me I’m A Dealer (BBC2), Impossible (Channel 5), Bangers & Cash (Vox) and Singing in The Rainforest (Watch).
Before Gogglebox, Mat was Creative Director at Lion TV. His credits there included the multi Emmy–winning Cash Cab (ITV1), Castaway (BBC1), Mums On Strike (ITV1), Dealing with Dickinson (BBC1), The Golden Lot (ITV1), The Big Day (BBC1), and Let Me Entertain You (BBC2).
Before Lion TV, he was founder and MD of Rose Bay – a boutique format-producer and distributor. At Rose Bay he created over 4,000 hours of programming based on his formats. These included Who’s Who? (which still airs today), A Fantasy Life, Parents Know Best and Captive.
As well as being a father, husband and decidedly mediocre drummer, he is immensely proud of his great great uncle Franz Kafka with whom he too often feels an affinity.
Ben Riley
Since joining Primal, Ben has been responsible for Landmark (Sky Arts) and Alan Must Win (E4). He was formerly Head of Entertainment Formats at Lime Productions – where he developed True Love or True Lies? for MTV, Dance Monsters for Netflix and #Dating No Filter for E! amongst others.
Prior to that, Ben was based in Australia where – contrary to popular belief that he spent his entire time tanning and posting sunset photos – he produced The Voice Australia, Big Brother Australia, Beauty and the Geek and headed up factual entertainment development for Matchbox Pictures. He was previously associated with senior production roles on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, Big Brother UK and 71 Degrees North and worked for a number of indies and broadcasters in development.
His greatest achievement is introducing the Riley family parlor game ‘flour mountain’ to Hollywood actor Michael Madson during Celebrity Big Brother. Michael promised to play it with Quentin Tarantino at their Christmas get togethers.
Neil Kirby
Neil’s a Development Executive whose credits span a wide range of genres, including reality shows like The One That Got Away (Amazon Prime), comedy ents like Sex Unzipped (Netflix), big events like Encanto: Live At The Hollywood Bowl (Disney Plus), studio panel with The Big Quiz: Corrie vs Emmerdale (ITV), cooking competitions like Yes Chef (BBC), even quiz shows like Battle of the Brains and Sudo-Q (BBC).
Prior to his current role at Primal he’s worked at companies such as Fulwell 73, ITV, BBC, Whizz Kid Entertainment, Zig Zag, and the Eagle and Child pub in Whitefield, Manchester.
Neil considers himself to be part of the gay bear community, which means he wears a lot of flannel and trucker caps. This once prompted Robbie Williams to ask him if he was a doomsday prepper, to which the answer was no – although Neil does keep a go-bag handy at all times “just in case”.
Gemma McAllister
Gemma not only looks after us at Primal Media but also manages the Entertainment department at our sister company STV. She started her career at ITV as a runner in the commercial department, before having a go at researching on The Trisha Show where she quickly realised her strengths were in organising and not producing.
She stayed with ITV for 12 years and ended up managing their factual dept in Norwich setting up productions all over the world for various networks such as Nat Geo, Animal Planet and CCTV. From there she went freelance and worked for several indies before moving to Ch5 working across their in-house productions including Bafta Award winning ‘Cruising with Jane McDonald’.
Always up for a challenge Gemma then worked for ITN and managed their ‘live’ branded content which included a National Lottery campaign for 2 years as well as the first ad streamed live via 5G for the O2 Network during the Rugby World Cup in 2019.
