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Category: TV

  • The Killing

    Like many people, I’ve been obsessively watching The Killing for the last ten weeks, and Saturday saw the denouement. Fear not – no spoilers here. Because if my friends and colleagues are to be believed, there’s going to a be a significant demand for the DVDs which are released a week today. I first learnt…

  • Ten O’Clock Live

    This week’s Broadcast magazine has an article entitled “C4 leaps to defence of Ten O’Clock Live as ratings plummet.” The audience has fallen from what they probably thought was a disappointing 1.4m at launch to 691,000 last week. C4 point out that this increases significantly once repeats and playbacks are added. But to be honest,…

  • Sky’s Ratings

    Since it’s buried away a little on Sky’s website, it’s worth pointing those interested in TV ratings towards a piece that Sky One’s Stuart Murphy has written about ratings for his shows. He illustrates the breakdown of viewership of an episode of the recent Mad Dogs (“Brilliantly disgraceful” wouldn’t be my description. “Perfectly entertaining, if…

  • What Will The Beeb Suggest Shutting Down or Cancelling Next?

    Hmm. Cancel BBC2 daytime programming and rebroadcast the BBC News channel during those hours. Essentially close down BBC Local Radio in England with just local breakfast and drivetime shows. Stop broadcasting Wimbledon and F1. What do they all have in common? They’re surely not ideas that are being “flown” to see what the reaction is?…

  • Mrs Brown’s Boys – How Does A Programme Like This Get Commissioned?

    Comedy can be a very personal thing. You find Big Momma’s House funny. I disassociate myself from you completely. But there are degrees. I find Catherine Tate personable, but her show was full of overlong sketches that were the same joke week in week out. Little Brtiain became very lazy, again suffering from the same…

  • If In Doubt Call It “Real”

    A couple of years ago, I wrote about the lazy trope that had invaded television titling meaning that seemingly every factual programme was titled “The Real…”. Since I wrote that piece, we’ve also had: Battle of Britain: The Real Story Britain’s Real Monarch Real Wolf Kids Real Crime Real Housewives of New Jersey Real Rescues…

  • The Business of Football

    I’m still coming down from an excpetional Wednesday night that saw Arsenal overcome a 1-0 defecit to win beat Barcelona, easily the best team in the world, 2-1. As I sit there dreaming about how Arsenal might maintain that lead in the much tougher return fixture in the Nou Camp a fortnight from now, I’ve…

  • Prime Suspect – US Style

    If you live in Scotland, there’s a good chance that you’ve seen the US version of Cracker – aka Fitz (probably when the rest of the country was watching something STV thought Scottish audiences wouldn’t like – Downton Abbey for example). While the original featured Robbie Coltrane as the overweight chainsmoking Fitz, in the US…

  • I’ll Have A “P” Please Bob

    You might be seeing the image above – or an inverted version – quite a bit on TV in the coming months. Ofcom has announced that it’s to be shown when a programme has accepted product placement. You’ll get at least three seconds of it at the start and end of the programme, as well…

  • 10 O’Clock Live

    So what to make of Channel 4’s new “it’s not The Daily Show that we just cancelled” comedy current affairs series? Well it’s not all bad, and it’s not all good. There seemed to be quite a few first night nerves and a generally quite disjointed feel to the programme, but that’s something that will…

  • Local TV

    Today, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt gave his backing to a new network of local TV stations built around the hub of a national spine. In other words, it’ll be a national service with local opt-outs at various times of the day. Hunt has been talking about this for ages, often with hackneyed references to Birmingham…

  • World Cup 2018 Redux

    Broadcast magazine has a really interesting story relating to England’s failed bid for the 2018 World Cup. The story is here (behind a paywall). In summary, it seems that in its bid proposal, England agreed to remove the 2018 World Cup tournament from the Listed Events which would have effectively let companies like Sky and…

  • Television I Have Been Watching

    A few programmes that did or didn’t entertain me in the last few days: Penn and Teller’s Fool Us was everything The Magicians wasn’t. With the straight magic show being considered far too straightforward for a 21st century audience, producers are constantly looking for spins that’ll make programming “acceptable”. Sadly, for BBC1’s The Magicians, the…