Month: February 2005

  • Ratings and Cancellations

    Today’s Media Guardian has an opinion piece by Emily Bell about the recent habit of stations canning series mid-run, and highlighting the recent case of the last episode of a Johnny Vegas sitcom failing to be aired having been “pre-empted” by an Ellen MacArthur special. Somehow it seems ironic that on the day this piece…

  • Cartoons

    Quel surpise! Channel 4 commission the 100 Greatest Cartoons, just months after they land The Simpsons, and waddya know. The Simpsons comes out top! Whilst it’s undoubtedly funny, nobody would argue that the level of animation is fairly rudimentary. And indeed, the whole of this list is pretty worthless. South Park at no. 3? Family…

  • Freeview: Good News, Bad News

    The good news, according to Broadcast this week, is that ITV and C4 are favourites to win the vacant Freeview slot that’s been put up for lease by Crown Castle. This means that we don’t get another shopping channel. The bad news is that ITV wants to put a version of Men & Motors on…

  • Not Quite A Billion Viewers of the Oscars

    A nice article from The New Yorker about the fact that not even close to one billion people watch the Oscars. I regularly rail against such hyperbole, but this comes just after the Superbowl. And then we’ll get the Olympics and the World Cup. To put the Oscars in perspective, you should know that in…

  • Merlin on Best Direct

    I suppose I’m lucky that I don’t have Sky and get even more shopping channels. But Best Direct is one of the tackier ones I do receive. They’re one of those channels that just shows “infommercials” on loops. So one second it’s yet another weight-loss machine, and the next it’s an inflatable bed. But last…

  • TV Listings in Express Newspapers

    Ever ready to make a quick buck, Richard Desmond’s Express Newspapers group is now wanting to make charges to broadcasters for the right to have their channels included in his papers. He wants digital channels to pay for their appearance in his rags! It seems as though all the channels are holding firm, in the…

  • Ken v The Daily Mail

    I think I can see both sides of the Ken Livingstone situation, with him claiming to have been targeted by Associated Newspapers over the last 24 years. On the other hand, being told your job is like a concentration camp guard’s is not very pleasant. Now Blair’s weighed in, speaking on that most august of…

  • Central Heating

    My flat basically doesn’t have central heating. But it’s OK! It tends to be quite warm all year around anyway. But when it does get cold I turn on the big storage heater in the living warm, but there is one small side effect – the warmth tends to send me off to sleep. I…

  • Busy Time

    It’s a busy time in radio at the moment with Lord Ali making a bid for my employers, Kelvin taking the Wireless Group off the stock market, and now Jazz FM renaming to Smooth FM, and losing all pretence of actually playing any Jazz. Obviously, I’ll be watching carefully to see what happens were SMG…

  • BAFTA Awards

    So BBC1 is showing the BAFTAs as I type, and I decided I’d have a quick look at the BAFTA site to see who all the nominees are. Well of course BAFTA have put up the full list of winners! Yet the programme is descibed as being “live”. The red carpet stuff seemed to be…

  • Boris on ID Cards

    I know we mostly think of him as the loveable fool who’s hosted a couple of Have I Got News For Yous, but sometimes he speaks incredibly good sense for a Tory. His stance on ID cards is one of those times. We can now only hope that there are members of the upper house…

  • National Holiday Petition

    Well the campaign for a national holiday is going great guns at the minute. At time of writing, a massive 34 people have decided to support my ongoing campaign to gain us a public holiday on the occassion of HRH Prince of Wales’ wedding. Some naysayers have pooh-poohed the idea, pointing out that we never…