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Comic Relief – The Other Channels
This Friday is Comic Relief night, and I shan’t go on my usual rant about all the plugs that amount to free primetime advertising for Sainsburys, Rymans, Subway, TK Maxx and other participating retailers will receive on BBC1 that evening. Oh… Anyway, what I have noticed is that traditionally the other channels tended to sit…
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Naked = Ratings
When Horizon is good, it’s very good. But when it’s bad, it’s terrible. And tonight we had possibly the worst Horizon I’ve seen in quite a while. What’s The Problem With Nudity was as blatant an example of ratings grabbing as I’ve seen in a long time. Did nobody see that excellent recent Screen Wipe…
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The Convention on Modern Liberty
On Saturday I attended what I genuinely believe was an important event – The Convention on Modern Liberty in London. Satellite events were taking place all over the country, with the plenary sessions and keynote addresses. It was a great day with a vast array of speakers. We had to pick and choose which sessions…
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David Simon Article
If you enjoyed The Wire, and in particular the fifth season, then you’ll really find this piece by David Simon worth reading. It’s food for though next time somebody says that bloggers or citizen journalists will fill in what traditional media is no longer able to. With UK regional newspapers falling nearly as fast as…
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6 Music and RAJAR
A week or so ago, Media Guardian got very excited about some RAJAR figures. They had the half hour figures for some BBC 6Music programmes. These figures showed that the peak listening for the “controversial” George Lamb was 40,000 while Adam and Joe on a Saturday morning peaked at 69,000 – the highest of the…
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TV Formats
Have you seen the new ITV gameshow presented by Chris Tarrant yet? It’s called The Colour of Money and has nothing to do with the Terry Pratchett novel of the same name. ITV’s clearly very excited by it. It’s presenter comes from the global phenomenom that was Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and the…
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“The Real…”
There’s a documentary on Channel 4 this evening entitled “The Real Pink Panther” which, as The Stage points out, is completely misnamed, as “The Pink Panther” was a jewel and not the criminal (“The Phantom”). This was my comment for that story which wouldn’t seem to post, but was worth putting here: I’ve got a…
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A Tale of Three Concerts
In the last seven days I seem to have seen a lot of music, although I did pay the price just a little. Last Sunday I went to The Junction in Cambridge to watch Bellowhead. Just to be clear, I don’t live in Cambridge, so it was a bit of a trip to see them.…
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When TV (or Radio) Uses Your Workplace
This Wednesday, ITV2 launches that rarest of things, a new sitcom. Actually, that’s a bit unfair, as ITV has been commissioning a reasonable amount of programming for ITV2. It’s just that most of it really doesn’t interest me. But this week there’s something that I am looking forward to – FM. Indeed, if you head…
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Radio 4’s Science Fiction Season
Radio 4 has a new Science Fiction season, and the TV trailer is wonderfully creepy: (Actually, I think it’s already been edited a little since this version was launched. Or maybe they have a pre-watershed version.)
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I Still Hate The Brits
Have I mentioned before that I hate the Brits? Well – yes I have. Having studiously avoided them for several years now (despite working for a music radio station), I decided to watch this year simply because the Pet Shop Boys are getting the award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. But this is dire. I…
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Juvenile Behaviour on the Radio
If you’ve never taken part in a phone-in on the radio, you might be surprised how easy it is to get through if you’ve got something interesting to say. Listen to “Tony” speaking to Five Live’s Victoria Derbyshire on Monday: And on Sunday night, “Pavinder” called Eddie Nestor on BBC London: If you happened to…
Podcasts, Radio, TV, Books, Cycling, Photography and More
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Yellowface/All The Lovers In The Night
Yellowface by R F Kuang I first came across R F Kuang with last year’s very enjoyable Babel, an alternate history of the British Empire told in a world where magic exists and is controlled by an elite group of individuals. Yellowface is very different, but no less enjoyable. It’s a book about books, and…
Hadrian’s Wall
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