BSkyB's Picnic to offer Discovery shows With a deal for content from Discovery Networks now completed, we now know the lineup for Sky's planned Picnic service for digital terrestrial television: Discovery (daytime)/Sky One Disney (daytime)/Sky Movies Sky Sports 1 Sky...

BBC fears for funding in digital future So Ed Richards seems to be determined to make his "public service publisher" idea live on in some form, despite the idea being rejected by government ministers (and even laughed at by some...

Have you got your daily male? Many people seem to be genuinely surprised at the success of the recently rebranded TV channel known as Dave. But how much of this success was due to an imaginative rebrand or was simply...

Channel 4 speech radio launch delayed Whilst television is moving full steam ahead towards the main part of the region-by-region analogue TV transmitter switchoff, digital radio has been encountering more and more setbacks. Recently, Virgin Radio Viva was axed which...

Ofcom Content Sampling Report - Ocean FM (PDF) From time to time representatives from Ofcom 'sample' the content of a radio or TV station in order to see if the station in question is fulfilling its remit, and from the...

Channel 4 axes TV schools programmes There have been profound changes made to education over the last few years, with perhaps the most significant being the wide availability of multimedia computers combined with the possibilities afforded by a broadband internet...

EU to allow product placement on TV What's the betting that ITV will now campaign to be allowed to feature product placement on its light entertainment and long-form drama productions, and Ofcom will simply roll over and oblige? Although limited...

VoD: Five left on the sidelines Recently it was announced that Ofcom's plan for a high definition Freeview service would provide HD channels for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, but no standard provision given for Channel Five to have...

What is television for? The recently departed ex-BBC One controller Peter Fincham asked various media industry peers to give their opinion on the worth of television, and the resultant answers give a widespread range of responses to this question that...

Has the death of mainstream TV been exaggerated? If you believed the pessimists a few years ago, BBC One would now be struggling to attract 5 million viewers and Sky One would be just as popular as ITV, but for...

A week in the death of public service broadcasting In the week that the retrial of Barry George was announced, the BBC said that it is going to axe Rough Justice, namely the programme that has uncovered numerous miscarriages of...

The dream job in British television that no one seems to want Personally speaking I don't think that the job of BBC One controller has (yet) turned into a "poisoned chalice" - that description is probably best reserved for Michael...

Low-key, nervy, raw: Birth of a channel Channel 4 @ 25: on screen highs... and lows Channel 4: Channel 4 News at 25: changing faces The launch of Channel 4 at 4.45pm on 2 November 1982 was a landmark in...

Cut local shows, say radio giants Radio in general is currently doing rather well in terms of the number of listeners despite the onslaught from alternatives such as personal music players and the internet, but the commercial stations are still...

Ant and Dec in the clear, says Grade One of the most controversial findings of today's Deloitte report into ITV's programmes that featuring premium rate interactivity (phone lines, text messages, etc.) involves the running of a competition on Ant and...

Thompson tells BBC staff of cuts plan It's still difficult to know exactly what to make of Mark Thompson's plans for the future of the BBC, but the overall impression is that the plan is essentially a difficult set of...

There's something about this picture taken from tonight's Channel Five that's different from what would have been the case only yesterday, and I'm not talking about the property prices either. Yes you've guessed it, Five are now using a...

Lyons warns Paxo and Humphrys It's hard to decide what to think of the ongoing crisis in relation to the BBC's funding for the sole reason that the recent licence fee negogiations between the BBC and the Government were conducted...

Radio station rapped for playing too many hits Prior to 1988 there was essentially only one commercial FM radio operator (Radio Victory followed by Ocean Sound) serving part of the central South of England region, but Ocean Sound then split...

BBC News: BBC One boss quits over Queen row Profile: Peter Fincham Ever since Mark Thompson started sacking junior staff for various misdemeanours, including Richard Marson for changing the name of a cat (something that may later return to haunt...

Home-grown children's television in peril The message seems to be clear. If there's a desire to protect UK-originated children's television from being the sole preserve of the BBC, then Ofcom will have to make provision for such programming in a...

The choice tonight was simple: either to watch the launch of Virgin 1 which made its Freeview debut at 9pm tonight, or instead watch the first ever edition of Countdown that was repeated on More4 as part of Channel...

Sky prepares a Picnic Feeling hungry? BSkyB certainly seems to be ravenous with its plans to take on Setanta, Freeview, BT Vision and Top Up TV with its digital terrestrial pay-TV proposal which has now been branded Picnic. Presumably the...

The Editors - Mark Thompson: Trust and values This is now getting very strange. Ex-Blue Peter producer Richard Marson was suspended then today sacked over a newly-revealed 'deception' that a Blue Peter online poll to name a cat returned the...

Ofcom raises iPlayer HD doubts This perversely could be good news for the BBC in one respect. A lack of network bandwidth for high definition downloads and the associated costs in providing this additional bandwidth could strengthen the hand of...

Grade calls for all ITV genre quotas to be axed You can probably tell that Michael Grade is having a really tough time sorting out ITV when he ends up making statements such as "I am not looking for support,...

BBC News: ITV to merge regional newsrooms The regional structure of ITV was conceived almost by accident, took forty years to fully develop and another ten years to simultaneously amalgamate and decline to its present state of affairs. Tight regulation...

ITV puts content at heart of five-year plan Sensibly, ITV has decided to put "better TV programmes" at the top of the list of things-to-do for the next five years. After all you can spend £10m on flashy internet services...

McCann radio debate slammed The ongoing saga of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has now developed from just another (admittedly important) news story into full-blown media hysteria over the past few weeks, and is even starting to affect certain parts...

BBC execs criticise calls for channel closures Splitting the BBC up into more defined internal departments has had the side effect of causing executives from each department to fight for their own corner, hence the belated BBC Vision response to...

Normally I have no interest in gardening whatsoever (plants tend to die if I have anything to do with them!), but back in 1992 I recorded "25 Years of Gardeners' World" for someone and came across the programme again...

Dr Paxman's diagnosis That speech again, all on one page (possibly) in a more palatable form Last year, television executives at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival were treated to a MacTaggart lecture delivered by the ex-ITV chairman Charles Allen,...

The text of this year's MacTaggart Lecture as read by Jeremy Paxman (PDF file) This should be compulsory reading material for everyone in the media industry and politicians of all persuasions, plus it's the antithesis of last year's speech made...

Channel 4 plans radical overhaul Dropping Big Brother altogether is still impossible financially for Channel 4 in the current media climate despite the steady decline in its ratings, but they've just gone and done the next best thing, namely 'resting'...

BBC scandals stoking crisis of distrust, say Paxman and Marr Despite all the alleged uncertainties, there are a lot of certainties in relation to the BBC's current position: the licence fee settlement has been resolved for the next few years...

Channel 4+1 website (still claiming that the channel "will be available" at the time of writing!) The launch of Channel 4+1 (no, not Channel 5) today was an interesting move as it's the first time that a mainstream channel has...

TUAW Rumour: iTunes UK to promote Channel 4 video content So far, Apple Mac users (those not running Windows XP, that is) have been denied access to the back catalogue of UK TV broadcasters (apart from some free BBC programme...

BBC chairman will oversee reforms to win back public trust So it's official: the BBC Trust is still considering the possibility of axing whole channels and/or services, and although the chairman has "complete confidence" in Mark Thompson with relation to...

In the dock Few could have predicted that what appeared to be a straightforward scandal involving Channel 4 and premium rate phone lines (Richard and Judy's You Say We Pay competition) would ultimately lead to this outpouring of both confessions...

RDF gets vote of confidence The fallout from the BBC's 'Crowngate' affair continues, with ITV following the BBC's example by suspending commissions from RDF, plus Channel 4 and Five unsurprisingly not following suit because RDF means too much to them....

BBC halts phone-in contests A scandal erupts in relation to the use of premium-rate phone quizzes in conjunction with various forms of broadcast media. In response to this. The BBC suspends its premium rate interactive services whilst an "internal audit"...

Queen gaffe firm's wall of silence Despite RDF's admission of guilt in relation to the ongoing "Crowngate" saga of the "sexed-up" Queen documentary, you can't help but feel a twinge of sympathy for RDF in this situation. Let's face it:...

Fincham's fate in Thompson's hands The Queen famously once had an "annus horribilis", and it now seems that 2007 is turning into much the same for the BBC. Just a few days after Ofcom fined the BBC for the very...

Ofcom defends Blue Peter fine The subject of regulating the BBC - or to be more precise, what method of external regulation is required (if any) - has always been a contentious issue, especially in relation to maintaining the impartiality...

Channel 4 pleads ignorance Finding out exactly how much Channel 4 knew about the dubious practices going on at Eckoh concerning the running of the "You Say We Pay" quiz would be rather difficult, but it's likely that Channel 4...

Grade plans to streamline ITV regional structure In recent times ITV has evolved from 15 separate franchises down to a handful of companies: ITV plc for England and Wales, STV for Scotland, UTV for Northern Ireland plus Channel for the...

BBC2 may screen more repeats to save money For those following the saga of the BBC budget cuts in the aftermath of the lower than expected licence fee settlement, an announcement of this nature comes as no surprise whatsoever, but...

Jowell warns Channel 4 Believe it or not, last night's announcements may actually be very reassuring for Channel 4 and signify that at least some government ministers still have faith in the channel. We may never know whether Gordon Brown...

Channel 4 praised for Big Brother action This year's "ordinary" Big Brother 8 was always going to be subjected to far greater scrutiny as a consequence of the last Celebrity Big Brother fiasco, and Channel 4 in a sense...

Digital Spy: Axed 'Grandstand' scoops RTS award The BBC in their folly wisdom may have decided to axe Grandstand for running too long being old-fashioned, but at least the RTS judges recognised that Grandstand was a "national institution" and a...

Ofcom makes landmark ruling over Big Brother Channel 4 review document (PDF) Ofcom Content Sanctions Committee report (PDF) So Ofcom managed to publish their verdict in time before the next series of Big Brother (which starts next week), and the...

'Brown may sell off Channel 4' It may be true that privatising Channel 4 would now have far less an effect on British broadcasting compared to what would have been the case if it was privatised ten or more years...

BBC high definition television channel Public Value Test (PDF) Contained within this PDF document are some interesting facts about the planned future of the BBC's HD TV service, and in particular relating to the BBC's short term plans to provide...

Sky News: Mylene Fronts Sky's Klass New Test Card Sky belatedly jumps on the "Test Cards are great even though they are so retro" bandwagon in this latest attempt to get the rest of us to sign up for Sky...

Situation critical The development of the iPlayer has been such a long and drawn-out affair that you can't help but think that there have been some fundamental failures in the project's management or its software development. (Or maybe it was...

Dawn's darkest hour For many years it was fashionable for media ventures to be small outfits that are effectively run by one or two people, and they inevitably concentrated on one thing, namely television production. The demise of various ITV...

The BBC's Panorama Page Tonight's Panorama on BBC One investigated the whole world of television quizzes and competitions that employ the use of premium rate phone lines, and whilst the programmes implicated may not have been a huge surprise to...

'Impossible' phone-ins cut off Given the recent spate of premium rate phone-in quiz scandals, it was inevitable that Ofcom would have to bow to increasing pressure and actively enforce a new set of rules controlling the very nature of competitions...

Freeview ascent puts it above Sky in digital race Quote of the day so far: "More than 500,000 VCRs were sold last Christmas, even though they will not work properly after the switchover, which begins in the Borders region next...

Boost for live TV web streaming Skinkers website The only issue that seems to be currently preventing the broadcast of live video streams from major broadcasters is the issue of internet bandwidth, namely that it's bad enough when a large...

Official: BBC is too upmarket Every so often, the BBC goes through the ritual of reassessing itself as to whether its output is still appropriate for the majority of licence fee-payers, and of course it should do this periodically otherwise...

Was it really ten years ago today when at 6pm I watched a decidedly fuzzy picture of the (then massively popular) Spice Girls launching Channel 5? Indeed I was lucky that Channel 5 was available at all where I...

Channel 4 queries rival digital radio bid The National Grid Wireless Bid The 4 Digital bid Today was the deadline for the submission of bids to run the new second national commercial DAB multiplex, and it now looks as if...

NCC pleas for temporary pay-TV truce Logically speaking, BSkyB ought to seriously consider the National Consumer Council's plea for a temporary deal allowing the return of the basic Sky channels to the Virgin Media cable service, but from recent...

Biddy Baxter 'appalled' by Blue Peter phone-in row One minute you may think it's all over, but it seems that premium phone line-related scandals continue to emerge like skeletons tumbling out of a large cupboard, and in their wake appear...

ITV Play cleared At the moment it's ITV Play the late night quiz strand on ITV1 and ITV2 that has been cleared as opposed to ITV Play the channel, which is still off air at the time of writing and...

Icstis seeks 'fair deal' for viewers What started as a single premium rate 'irregularity' allegedly involving the Richard and Judy show's "You Say We Pay" quiz has now turned into a scandal that threatens to overwhelm the whole premium rate...

TV channels clear phone-in shows Now why doesn't this surprise me? Various television broadcasters set up premium rate quizzes/'interactive' phone-in voting systems that earn a respectable side income (if not enough to replace other forms of revenue), and all superficially...

Sky urges Virgin customers to switch BSkyB's latest move in this unfolding saga of Virgin Media-baiting may not win it many friends, either amongst Virgin Media customers (who may either by hostile towards Sky or cannot have satellite TV for...

Virgin-Sky talks break down Definitive and unbiased information relating to what exactly took place between BSkyB and Virgin Media during recent and very tense negogiations relating to the Sky channels may never be disclosed, but in recent months Sky's public...

Daily Mail: Richard and Judy quiz scam If any of this Daily Mail 'exclusive' story has any basis in fact, then Channel 4 could find itself embroiled in another major and potentially very damaging scandal relating to the content of...

After all of the promotional activity over the last few days, the new series of Life On Mars started on BBC One tonight at 9pm...with something old, namely a recreated widescreen BBC 1 COLOUR globe instead of a standard...

Prehistoric monsters making lots of noise, loud bangs, creepy forests, lots of running about the place. Yes you guessed it, it's the time-travelling dinosaur romp Primeval which made its debut on ITV1 tonight. It's true that the characters were...

BSkyB to launch DTT pay-TV Today saw the big launch of Virgin Media, which is essentially most of what NTL-Telewest used to offer combined with the Virgin Mobile service plus a few new bells and whistles tacked on for good...

Trailer for ITV's Primeval (requires Windows Media/Flip4Mac) They often say never judge a book by its cover, but this trailer for ITV's forthcoming sci-fi drama Primeval suggests that it's probably as close to a cheap Doctor Who/Torchwood knock-off as they...

BBC iPlayer gets go-ahead Thankfully proving that the new BBC Trust doesn't drag its heels when making those crucial decisions, the somewhat-controversial iPlayer service finally gets the go-ahead. Compared with the "Let's see what the market supports" approach of Channel...

Saga stations to be rebranded as Smooth Radio Whilst other UK radio operators have been very cautious as of late, Guardian Media Group has recently been on the acquisition trail, picking up the Century FM and Saga radio brands and...

Ofcom criticises BBC's on-demand plans Now where do I start? OK, here goes then. First off, why is Ofcom so upset at the BBC offering series longer than 12 episodes for public downloading? Any arbitary restriction will just end up...

C4 board to question executives over Big Brother Duncan's darkest hour Whatever the ultimate outcome of the Celebrity Big Brother fiasco for Channel 4, all of this has perhaps helped to emphasise a variety of issues relating to the current...

I vowed not to mention the dreaded Celebrity Big Brother in this blog, but if you must read one online article about Celebrity Big Brother, racism and media manipulation then make it this one. However, although the comment "we're only...

Tonight wins current affairs battle Unsurprising fact of the week so far is that ITV1's Tonight with Trevor McDonald (which can be a misleading title since it often contains precious little of Trevor McDonald) and Coronation Street beat the revamped...

Here's one we made much, much earlier - and now it's time to move Sometimes it's difficult to know what to think about the BBC's proposed move for key departments from London to Salford, if it goes ahead that...

BBC's Baby Borrowers: experiment or exploitation? Take one underfunded channel desperate for more viewers in order to justify its remit, throw in the current trend for reality TV featuring wives/husbands/children/pets/etc. and Baby Borrowers is (perhaps) the thoroughly predictable end result....