Category: TV
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Christmas Day 2022 – Radio Times
Congratulations on making it through to Christmas Day! While the family arguments begin early, I’m here to hold your hand through your TV and radio entertainment options, to make sure that you’re not stuck watching a celebrity special gameshow when you could be watching something much better (i.e. anything). Certainly, my tastes may not be…
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Christmas Eve 2022 – Radio Times
If it’s Christmas then that means I get out my Post-it notes and marker pen to run through the double issue of the Radio Times to see what TV and radio I personally think are worthwhile. I’m not kidding myself that we’re all limited to what the major linear channels are showing. Maybe you’re binging…
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Broadcast v Streaming
On an episode of Richard Osman’s House of Games that aired at the start of this week, there was a question in the Distinctly Average round that made me sit up. The celebrity contestants are paired up and each must answer a numerical question that is usually based around making an estimation. They’re not expected…
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The Olympics on TV in the UK
The 2012 London Olympics were perhaps the high point for UK viewers who wanted to watch the Olympic Games. For a home event, the BBC pulled out all the stops with coverage across BBC One, BBC Two and BBC Three (then still on broadcast). There was a vast array of other broadcasts too, with up…
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CNN+
It’s interesting to see that CNN is launching a new subscription streaming service which it is imaginatively titling CNN+, because all streaming services from “legacy” providers have indicate that they’re streaming by adding that “+”. The service will launch in 2022 and will co-exist with CNN’s existing brands including CNN and CNN International. But there…
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Who Pays For the Super League?
Unless you’ve been asleep, you will know that, at time of writing, 12 named football clubs have agreed to join something called the European Super League. Another three teams are as yet unnamed. Obviously the whole thing is a sporting farrago, which guarantees the founder members permanent places in this league regardless of how well…
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Star on Disney+ is a Shallow Offering
This week Disney began its global rollout of ‘Star’ as part of its Disney+ service. In the US, Disney has a family of packages including Hulu and ESPN+, offering a package deal for all of them. But the rights situation is complicated. Although Hulu is basically owned by Disney now, it was originally a joint…
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Super Bowl Technical Shortcomings
While it’s a few hours too early to know how many millions of Americans watched this year’s Super Bowl, it’ll certainly be the biggest audience of the year, being the major television event. Even with the Tokyo Olympics still scheduled for this summer, there won’t be as many people watching at one time as there…
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TV Logos Viewers Don’t Understand
Far be it for me to suggest that some elements of TV production deliberately obfuscate information, but here are three things that appear daily on UK TV, but which many – perhaps most – viewers simply don’t understand. There are different reasons for each of them, but they both put information in plain sight, while…
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It’s Different This Side of the Pond
Yesterday I saw my first TV ad – at least in quite a few months – for Wonder Woman 1984, the next instalment of the blockbuster DC Extended Universe film series. The TV ad tells me that the film is opening in UK cinemas on 16 December. Hmm. Now this is a film who’s release…
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Why ‘Access’ and ‘FYI Daily’ Exist
The other night I was looking for something to watch mindlessly for a bit and noticed that action film John Wick: Chapter 2 was on Channel 5. That would be suitably mindless. So I flicked over and was presented with a needless bit of fluff about some terrible-looking new Robert De Niro film. I was…
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Eye Level
This Sunday sees ITV launch a reboot of one of their most famous detectives – Van Der Valk. Based on a series of novels by Nicolas Freeling, which were mostly published in the 1960s, the TV series began life in 1972 with Barry Foster starring as Commisaris Van Der Walk of the Amsterdam police. Produced…
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Red Moon
I’m currently watching For All Mankind on Apple TV+. The series is one of a handful that Apple has made free for a “limited time.” Coming from Ron (Battlestar Galactica) Moore, it was for me the most intriguing of Apple’s launch series, and I’m a little under halfway through it and really enjoying it. The…