Media Guardian: Emily Bell on Public Service Broadcasting It's not often I agree with the views of Guardian Unlimited Editor In Chief, Emily Bell, however today I found myself nodding firmly in agreement with Emily. In response to Channel 4...
Posts from November 2004
The News At End
It's still number one?
Top of the Pops axed by BBC1 The mysterious thing about this change is that Top of the Pops is now going to incorporate elements of Top of the Pops 2 - therefore it now appears to be more like...
Never mind the aspect ratio: hear the music
Howard Goodall's 20th Century Greats In what is evidently going to be a cracking good four-part series on 20th century composers who will be remembered in the future much as Beethoven, Mozart and Bach are today, Howard Goodall kicked off...
It's Hideous!
R.I.P. Changing Rooms Finally - the show which spawned a thousand clones, and enticed broadcasters to fill endless hours showing viewers how to wreck their living room, has ended. As the show best known for bringing such 'talents' as...
Regulating the regulator
Bectu threatens Ofcom with legal action over ITV ITV may have thought that it can sidestep most (or indeed all) of its remaining obligations with Ofcom in charge of regulation, but a legal challenge from Bectu may well prove to...
Ofcom's unintentional teeth
TV auction channel shuts up shop With Ofcom - and the ITC before it - often accused of having no teeth, it came as some of a surprise when they doled out a £450,000 fine, amongst other things, to...
A boon for busy fathers
Sharp rise for on-demand Before I got married, I was an avid Radio 4 listener. I picked up the Radio 4 bug at university during the Gulf War, and I found myself utterly unable to shake it off. After that,...
Buying time
ITV delays decision on satellite switch Publically BSkyB are making a great effort to keep ITV from following the BBC's example and going free-to-air, since if ITV were to do so this would enable the BBC to launch a Freesat...
Up goes the licence fee
TV licence to increase to £126.50 Well, up goes the licence fee, to help provide, "a strong and distinctive schedule of high quality programmes" according to Tessa Jowell. Considering the BBC keep flogging their departments off, sorry, focusing on...
Where next, Sky?
Media Guardian: Freeview 'to overtake Sky Digital in 2005' Daily Telegraph: Sky leaps as subscribers gather for Christmas The industry believes that Sky will be overtaken by Freeview as the primary digital platform, by Christmas 2005 - set top boxes...
Run Away!
Media Guardian: New TV channel offers home to classic variety acts A TV station with Joe Pasquale? Bobby Davro? Brian Conley? Jethro? It's like 1980s Saturday night television all over again... All they need to add to the list is...
It was not going to work
C4 and Five abandon merger plans It was pretty obvious that this proposed marriage of convenience would end in tears long before the couple would ever get near an altar, but both sides felt pressured into considering at least a...
Greg Dyke drops a hint
We later discovered that the ITC had found something in their investigation which BSkyB didn't want made public Of course, if Greg himself never found out what (unless he's holding back something really big for later), we're unlikely to find...
Bizarre, Unknown, Broadcasting Regulator Of The Day
Say hello to The Office of the Adjudicator, created by Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading, and funded entirely by ITV plc, with the sole purpose of acting on disputes between ITV plc and the media buyers - that's...
The Channel 4 Conundrum
Media Guardian: C4 could be part-funded by license fee Media Guardian: Ofcom reveals vision for new 'public service publisher' So on one hand, Channel 4 could be so desperate for £100m a year that it has to be injected with...
Under scrutiny
Inquiry into BBC One programming The first sentence of this BBC News article summarises the level of anxiety that faces both the BBC and its governors: "BBC governors have ordered an inquiry into BBC One's peak time schedules amid public...
BREAKING NEWS: ITV3 to launch on Sky Digital, at 9pm Tonight
ITV3, which has been the centre of a lot of heated discussion between Sky and ITV will now launch at the official launch time of 9pm tonight, Monday November 1st 2004. Apparently, this is the result of a deal between...
Editorial: November 2004
Hello, and welcome to the latest updates to Electromusications. As you may know, if you subscribe to some of the mailing lists about broadcasting history, television presentation and related topics, a couple of months ago Russ J Graham - overall...
