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All Seasons

Season 1

  • S01E01 How to Win Newspapers and Influence People

    • September 27, 1984

    The extraordinary events inside the Daily Mirror. Idealist Clive Thornton wanted to sell shares in the Daily Mirror to the public and make it the people's newspaper. But then along came multi-millionaire Robert Maxwell. On Friday 13 July he bought the entire Mirror Group for himself. Thornton was out - and the ebullient Maxwell set about putting his personal stamp on the paper. Next week Commercial Breaks follows Maxwell's frantic circulation war.

  • S01E02 Who Dares, Wins Readers?

    • October 4, 1984

    The inside story of the circulation war between Fleet Street's tabloids. This programme goes behind the scenes at the Daily Mirror newspaper as Robert Maxwell controls every detail of his campaign to topple the Sun as Britain's top-selling tabloid, from directing his own commercials to cross-examining his circulation managers.

  • S01E03 The Final Arrangement

    • October 11, 1984

    Three Californian entrepreneurs have a bold, but bizarre new business idea to persuade investors to put hundreds of thousands of dollars into their company and set about making it work. But there are special problems. The business is cremation, which is virtually unknown in California.

  • S01E04 Hot Chocolate

    • October 18, 1984

    Cocoa is one of the world's hottest commodities. This programme follows the fortunes of a New York speculator, a London cocoa merchant and the chocolate company, Rowntree Mackintosh.

  • S01E05 Levis - Not by Jeans Alone

    • October 25, 1984

    Peter Haas and Steve Goldstein are two rising young Levi's executives who are taking the company upmarket by launching 'Tailored Classics', a new line of expensive men's clothes.

  • S01E06 Tim Bedford's Fast and Bumpy Ride

    • November 1, 1984

    This programme follows Tim Bedford's fortunes for nine months as he struggles to keep his project of modifying diesel engines to utilise natural gas afloat.

  • S01E07 Space Salvage

    • November 8, 1984

    Stephen Merrett and Richard Maylam specialise in the high-risk business of satellite insurance. This programme features the inside story of nine months of delicate negotiation to rescue insured satellites and bring them back to earth.

  • S01E08 The Diamond Game

    • November 15, 1984

    Bill Goldberg is a New York diamond merchant, buying and selling expensive stones and gambling on finding the right millionaire to buy the jewellery. In a rare glimpse of an intensely secretive world, Goldberg and other dealers wheel and deal over million-dollar bargains on 47th Street - Manhattan's equivalent of Hatton Garden and known as the richest street in America.

  • S01E09 Million Dollar Scan

    • November 22, 1984

    Elscint is an Israeli company that make machines that can see inside humans better than X-rays ever will. But the company's latest see-through device isn't ready for an important Chicago exhibition and their factory in Oxford is having problems with a rival just down the road.

  • S01E10 Flight of Fancy

    • November 29, 1984

    Moya Lear has been the driving force behind the Learfan - a revolutionary aircraft into which the British government has sunk no less than £50,000,000 in the hope that it will create 1,200 jobs in Northern Ireland.

  • S01E11 Wildcatter

    • December 6, 1984

    This programme follows oil company owner Bill Brodnax and his 'wildcatters' drill two and a half miles down below some Louisiana rice fields in search of, what they believe may be $100 million-worth of gas.

  • S01E12 The Battle for Santa's Software

    • December 13, 1984
    • BBC Two

    This programme follows two computer software companies as they seek a Christmas top ten hit.

  • S01E13 Off the Beaten Track

    • December 20, 1984

    In early 1984, small holiday firm chief executive Graham Phillips decides to expand his business into the risky long-haul market - exotic holidays in far-off places.