BBC Trust to scrutinise 'distinctiveness' of BBC's digital ambitions This is a tricky issue which may never be resolved to the true satisfaction of the BBC's commercial competitors, namely in respect to having a new series of controls to prevent...

A loss of faith In the past, 'good' television and film-making has often involved a degree of artifice, so it was perhaps inevitable that TV producers under pressure to produce good programmes would in turn use that artifice to influence...

One upon a time, the adage was that you joined the BBC to get the training, then when you could, you disappeared off for the better wages in the commercial world.

There is absolutely no doubt at all. Not one bit. You can guarentee that is there's one programme that's going to set the "decline of broadcasting" brigade off, it's new CBBC programme Gastronuts, which, according to the Guardian, will "encourage kids to stew worms, catch farts in jars and bake toenail cakes".

BBC should privatise Radios 1 and 2, says Richard Eyre Ex-commercial radio man wants BBC Radios 1 and 2 to be privatised, which is a rather strange assertion to make on the face of it unless he's signing a death...

There's a certain irony that ITV apparently failed to meet its quotas for out of London production. Irony that a network which was founded on regional principles, to spread power and away from the capital, is now firmly rooted in London, and makes most of its programmes there.

Fed up with local radio playlists? Blame audience testing In recent years the majority of commercial radio stations have somehow lost all their so-called 'rough edges' that once made them distinctive, and this has been attributed to a number of...

Andy Duncan 'fed up' by Channel 4 funding 'squabble' Hot on the heels of the BBC Trust chairman Michael Lyons declaring that the BBC's piggy bank wasn't to be raided by media's Uncle Tom Cobbley, we have Channel 4's Andy...

BSkyB's digital terrestrial pay-TV plans on hold BSkyB's planned digital terrestrial pay-TV service known as Picnic - something that most people outside of Sky had probably forgotten about by now - has been delayed yet again by Ofcom, although Ofcom...

If you, like me, are an avid BBC Four viewer, you might have seen the extremely cool trailer for the recent Mediaeval (oh, sorry, we are spelling it the American way now, "Medieval") Season (a not very good YouTube...

Ant and Dec to return comedy award Just when you thought things couldn't get worse for ITV, another major revelation about ITV is made public at the same time as Ofcom finally announced its £5.675m fine against ITV; a revelation...

Money for old soap: ITV press ad from 1989 (Media Guardian) Back in 1989, ITV was obviously feeling the heat from "Mr. Murdoch's Sky Channel" and the forthcoming BSB as well as the cable TV companies that were proliferating their...

Freesat Website Freesat officially launched at 12.30pm today, and here are a few points that may be of interest: - No sign of Channel 4 HD yet even though the standard definition Channel 4 is (now) free-to-air. It may appear...

It's not been a good few years for Talk Sport, the station that former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie fashioned in his old newspaper's image after buying Talk Radio in 1998 and sacking half the presenters. First, a lawsuit Mr MacKenzie...

Digital Spy: ITV HD to be Freesat exclusive? This could be a potentially interesting twist to the low-key feud between ITV plc and BSkyB, which is attributed to BSkyB blocking potential suitors to a painless ITV plc takeover with its...

Attenborough delivers warning to BBC After last week's duo of lectures purporting to be supportive of public service broadcasting in some form but perhaps hitting the self-destruct switch instead, we now have words from a stalwart supporter of public service...