The company was rebranded as STV Productions on 1 October 2008, to coincide with its parent company renaming from SMG plc to STV Group plc on the same day. STV Productions are the makers of Taggart, the longest running crime drama on British television, broadcast on the ITV network and sold overseas for transmission in over 40 territories. Other successful drama productions include television adaptions of Ian Rankin's Rebus, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips as well as Neil Buchanan's Art Attack. STV Productions' Factual department has a long track record in award-winning documentary production for national and regional transmission with past output including After Lockerbie, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Magic at War and Justice for My Daughter. More recent productions have included Highlands, Made in Scotland, Scotland Revealed and The Merchant Navy. The department expanded into the area of factual entertainment with the production of the cult series, Club Reps for ITV and more recently, the regional magazine show The Hour. The expansion in factual entertainment production was further enhanced by the acquisition of the Ginger Media Group, including subsidiary company Ginger Productions, which has produced such programming as Don't Drop the Coffin for ITV and Celebrity Detox for Channel 5. Recent output from the company has included for ITV2 and the one-off special, Paul Zenon's Revenge Squad. Prior to ownership by STV, Ginger Productions' most notable shows were Don't Forget Your Toothbrush and TFI Friday, both made for Channel 4 and presented and produced by Chris Evans. The company is one of the biggest producers of children's programming in the UK, covering factual series such as How 2 and Prove It!, comedy drama Uncle Dad, arts series Cre-8 and a number of original programmes in the Scottish Gaelic language for BBC Alba. A weekend continuity strand featuring archive and imported children's output, wknd@stv is also produced on a weekly basis for STV. In 2008, STV Group plc announced an investment of almost £1 million into the production company's development division in an attempt to create new international formats, co-productions and advertiser-funded output for a number of broadcasters. STV Productions have produced many shows, including: Scottish Passport, The Hour, Catchphrase, The Poison Tree, Fake Reaction, Antiques Road Trip among others. STV Productions produced the comedy panel game show, Fake Reaction which began airing on ITV2 in January 2013.
