Television has long been under attack. Digital media, societal change and audience fragmentation mean that those occasions when the whole nation gathers around their set have become increasingly rare. But when they do happen it's a useful reminder of how important TV is as social glue. And one of...
Does ITV know something about the Competition Commission's final decision on CRR that we don't? Already the broadcaster has an ITV1+1 service lined up and ready to start transmitting from the beginning of next month - coincidentally the CC is expected to make its ruling on what 'son of CRR'...
So Big Brother is to be axed from Channel 4 according to an The Sun. Let's hope the news is true. The show has really run its course. That has been said several times in the past but with ratings falling every year it was a surprise that Channel 4 signed another three-year deal with Endemol, meaning...
A clip of creepy cutlery twister Uri Geller was on Sky News this morning. It was an excerpt from some more high quality entertainment we can look forward to on ITV1 on Sunday night - My Friend Michael Jackson: Uri's Story . A blubbing Geller talks about how Jacko was his 'brother' and a 'true...
You have to feel sorry for ITV, it has made great efforts to develop high quality dramas and change the way it is seen, but before this project really got started the axe has fallen. Some shows have already been cut, and other big budget investments like sci-fi/dinosaur show Primeval, face an uncertain...
Apparently the unreleased energy contained in the average dustbin each year could provide enough power for 5000 hours of TV viewing (and probably supply enough content for the schedulers at BBC3 in perpetuity). The principle of 'more is less' means that there is now a lot of rubbish on the telly...
It's a shame that the Duke of Edinburgh has denied that he called Simon Cowell a ‘scrounger', even though he did it with the rather elegant put-down that ‘he does not know enough about Mr Cowell to make any sort of comment about him'. I can think of a lot worse things to call him - camp old...
ITV is having a bad time of it and advertisers aren't impressed, but what's the solution? Does ITV need to tweak its model and maybe take a look at Fox's bold “Remote-Free TV” experiment? It seems unfair to rub it in again as everyone has stuck it to ITV recently, but these last few weeks...
Viewers have come to accept that Mark Austen and Fiona Bruce will occasionally lapse into Pip ‘n’ Fern on their respective news bulletins by cross-promoting other programmes on their channels. ITV does it for Tonight, the BBC for Panorama, Channel 4 for Dispatches (Five is precluded because it doesn...
Given that only Robert Peston has a more influential blog than this one, I thought I'd give you some insight into..... Al Murray's Happy Hour. Now I'm a massive fan of Al Murray and the show and I think that it provides ITV1 with a very neat young profile that it is often not given the credit...
