June 2006 Archives

Once again, our Friday round-up of all the bits you may have missed in the past week.

The week on TV Today:

• Mac’s back
• Square Eyes: 1-2 July
• I cracked!What did you expect, Mr C?
• RDF to offer programme downloads
• The nation’s favourite?
• How to earn £50,000 for a 3-minute pilot
• “The F-Word is a pile of poo”
• When we were 1
• Square eyes 26-30 June
• Death of a television legend

And from elsewhere on The Stage:

• Geena Davis confirms Commander in Chief telemovie
• ITV signs comedians Gervais and Murray
• Kirsty Young is Desert Islands Discs host
• Brass Eye writer Bussman takes one-woman show to Edinburgh
• Spinal Tap’s Shearer to star in BBC radio comedy
• Parfitt to develop BBC programming for teenagers
• Futurama to return in 2008
• Actor Kenneth Griffith dies
• Elton John to headline EuroPride stage show
• TV review: Harry Venning reviews Saxondale, Beau Brummell: This Charming Man and The Girls Who Came To Stay.
• Obituaries: Peter Bryant, TV producer; David Butler , actor and writer; Judy Wilson , actress

One thing I’ve noticed about living my TV life via Sky+ and its one-button Series Link feature is that I carry on watching TV series that I would otherwise have given up on within the first couple of weeks. One of those series was Commander-in-Chief, the US drama series which played out on ABC1 over here, and starred Geena Davis as Mackenzie ‘Mac’ Allen, the USA’s first female president.

How can I put this kindly? It stank, but enjoyably so. It was the sort of show where you could safely hit the mute button knowing you weren’t missing much, then mull over why CinC’s Oval Office looked like a shabby imitation not of the White House, but of The West Wing’s sets, why Donald Sutherland had agreed to be in this nonsense, and what 21st Century woman would ever name their son ‘Horace’.

Awful as it was, I just couldn’t stop watching it. Sadly, it didn’t really improve. But it’s quite reassuring to know that, now that it’s been cancelled, series creator Rod Lurie is creating a one-off telemovie sequel. Rumours have abounded for a while, but series star Geena Davis confirmed to our very own Liz Thomas, who’s working over in Monaco at the Monte Carlo TV Festival:

We are definitely making a telemovie of the show - that is my next project. Hopefully you know then we will be able to some more episodes after that.

I can’t help thinking she’s being a little optimistic in her hope for a second season. But now that The West Wing is over in the States, with just a few more episodes to run here on More4, it’d be good to be able to see a US President who looks like they know what they’re doing…

There are two words that strike dead into any TV reviewer (or, for that matter, previewer). No, I’m not talking about “Doctor Who”. Or “Big Brother”. Not even “Hollyoaks spin-off”, although the blood does run cold even typing that last one. No, I’m talking about the dreaded “drama documentary” — a curious mongrel which cross-breeds two successful genres, but somehow manages to lose the best elements of both.

Which makes it all the more surprising, then, that The Somme — From Defeat to Victory (8.00pm Sunday, BBC1) is actually quite good. Showing to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the cataclysmic World War I battle, the programme follows a group of young friends from Salford, who fought and died side-by-side in the French trenches. Based on extensive research, the documentary shows how the five-month-long battle changed the British army’s tactical approach to warfare, and turned such monumental carnage — 20,000 troops died in a single day — into eventual victory.

Battles of the heart, subterfuge, disguise and partner-swapping aplenty abound, when the BBC shows a live broadcast of Mozart’s classic comic opera Così Fan Tutte (7.00pm Saturday, BBC Four) from Glyndebourne. Nicholas Hytner’s first opera in ten years, staged to celebrate the composer’s 250th anniversary, is “a very welcome return”, according to Stage critic George Hall:

His staging, with delicate period designs by Vicki Mortimer, subtly lit by Paule Constable, is visually elegant and probes this most complex of comedies with intelligence and perception. Arguably the humour is underplayed at first, but no one will feel short-changed by the end. The characters and the audience go through a profound and troubling experience.

Meanwhile, it’s all kicking off in Doctor Who: Army of Ghosts (7.00pm Saturday, BBC1), with the first of a two-part season conclusion that promises the return of the Cybermen and the despatch of Billie Piper to the great TARDIS in the sky. We also get to see inside the mysterious Torchwood Institute, led by ex-EastEnder Tracy-Ann Oberman, for the first time. Referenced in last year’s Christmas Day episode, and with references inserted (a little too clumsily, at times) into most of this season’s episodes, the Institute is due to get its own spin-off series on BBC Three in the autumn. As a taster, Doctor Who Confidential (7.45 Saturday, BBC3) gives a sneak peek, and promises some glimpses of John Barrowman, who is due to return in his acclaimed role as Captain Jack.

And we finish off with a little bit of populist culture — no, not Heartbeat (8.20pm Sunday, ITV1), of which there’s two hours of period nonsense this week, but the final episode of The Singing Estate (8.00pm Sunday, Five). The novice choristers are getting geared up to sing O Fortuna, from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, in the Royal Albert Hall. Tensions are high, tempers are fraying, and there just isn’t enough time to rehearse. Will they succeed?

Well, what do you think? Ivor Setterfield is hardly Whoopi Goldberg in a wimple, but the dramatic structure of this show should be familiar to anyone. Still, it’s been a fun watch, and in a weekend where the schedules are dominated by football, tennis and Formula One, we have to take our comfort where we may…

I’m not proud of this, but back in the very beginning, when TV Today was but a prancing foal of a blog, I proudly set out my stall of Big Brother defiance:

“Whether I’ll be successful in my attempts to go organic in my avoidance of Big Brother remains to be seen…”

I smugly proclaimed, and, it did remain to be seen. But not for long. I did very well, all things considered, to be out of the living room at 9pm five nights a week (twice on Saturdays), but then it all went wrong. And who am I blaming? Nikki, that’s who…

I am fascinated by this creature who, during a raid to retrieve a book from the living room, was emblazoned across the diary room chair, pontificating in Peter Crouch-esque robotic gestures about something she didn’t like. Before I knew it, I was entranced and sat through the rest of the episode, accompanied by my partner’s knowing “I told you so” smile. It seems that Nikki wasn’t happy about somebody called Suzi waltzing in, and how ’I can’t even look at it!” was the mantra of the night.

Even better was the following night (oh yes, I was back, popcorn bucket on knee) when Nikki, clearly not a fickle young thing, proclaimed “I like her, I like her!”, once more on the subject of Suzi.

Curse you all, Big Brother housemates! I was strong, I was good. I’d even managed to pair all my socks in some Herculean effort to avoid you. But one five second burst of exposure had me drawn in quicker than Michael Owen on a plane back to Blighty.

And I still hate it. Watching Big Brother gives me the same feeling as eating KFC. Cheap, dirty, but Lord have mercy, it’s good!

This weekend begins my renewed efforts of detoxing myself away from the house, but my decision to have one final hit last night exposed me to the lunacy of Aisleyne and Lea’s vitriolic face-off. I might just have to look in one last time tonight… But it’s okay. I can give it up tomorrow. Can’t I?

Still, it’s good to see C4 doing well on the back of providing a World Cup alternative, recording its second highest audience share of the year thanks to some foul-mouthed entertainment… and Big Brother.

This one isn’t going away, is it? Gold-plated (well he should be for that money) BBC boy Jonathan Ross has, quite rightly, defended his supposedly lewd and crude questions to David “Diddy” Cameron on last week’s Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.

The thought of Mrs T in stockings aside, this one is all a bit silly, isn’t it? If you’re going to sit on Ross’s sofa, whoever you are, you’re going to suffer a fairly risqué line of questioning. Heck, even the Pope would probably count as fair game, and that’s an interview I’d gladly pay good money to see.

And I’m going to cut David Cameron some slack on this, because there doesn’t appear to have been any direct quote from Mr C himself on this subject. All the posturing and foot stamping has been coming from Lord Tebbit (and how nice it is to have the image of Tebbit in full-on biker/truncheon mode fresh in mode, thanks to Best Ever Spitting Image).

The Independent reports that Ross popped into Radio Five Live to state his case, saying:

“We don’t set out to upset people. I wouldn’t want to do that, even though upsetting Norman Tebbit has given me some small sense of satisfaction because he’s spent 12 years upsetting me.”

Well, quite.

It’s never pretty seeing politicians going on chat shows, and its especially painful watching Tories put themselves through the ringer as they tend to be particularly bad at it. Unless you’re Boris Johnson, naturally, who provides the nation with a walking, cycling mass entertainment industry just by getting up in the morning.

Cameron’s certainly been putting himself about a bit, what with Desert Island Discs (don’t worry Kirsty, I think you’re great!) and now Wossy. But why must they do it? Cameron’s better than most of his predecessors at hitting the circuit, but it’s still cringe worthy to watch, like watching your dad dancing at a wedding. And let’s face it, an interviewer like Ross (or indeed anybody) is not going to let an opportunity like this pass. But, the important thing to note is that he treats all his guests like this, so Mr Tebbit, do put that truncheon down and let the kids get on with it. They’re having fun!

The TV world has been abuzz recently with the details of broadcasters’ new media deals with Pact, the independent producers’ body, over new media rights. The reasons for these deals are not only so that broadcasters can offer programmes for download themselves, but after an agreed amount of time (in the case of ITV and Channel 4, 30 days ) indie programme makers will be able to pursue other new media deals.

The first of these has now been mooted. Broadcast reports (sub. req.) that RDF Media is to set up its own broadband site, possibly operational by the end of the year.

Still in the planning stages, it’s not clear yet how customers will pay for the content. RDF is apparently “exploring pay-per- view, pay-to-own and subscription models… [and] has also not ruled out making the service available outside the UK.” There’s also talk of expanding the service to other indies in time.

Although RDF owns Touchpaper TV, makers of dramas such as Rocket Man, The Queen’s Sister and NY:LON as well as Julian Fellowes’ A Most Mysterious Murder, they’re surely better known for their reality hits, Wife Swap, Shipwrecked (through subsidiary RDF Television) and the Phil’n’Kirsty property shows Location, Location, Location and their spin-offs (from IWC Media). So they should be encouraged by a US research report that claims users of video-on-demand (VOD) services are 27% more likely to watch reality formats than your average viewer.

It’s one of the most enduring TV sponsorship deals, but in the wake of its salmonella scare, chocolate giant Cadbury has temporarily pulled its sponsorship of Coronation Street until the hoopla and investigations have calmed down a touch.

Is this the right move? I’m not so sure. The partnership between ITV (ne Granada) and Cadbury is in its tenth year, and the branding is so fused with Corrie’s identity that it’s going to look mighty peculiar to have episodes going out without it after all these years…

I’m no fan of corporate sponsorship, but it’s here and clearly isn’t going anywhere, so I’m not sure of the benefit in pulling the idents, even if only for a couple of days. In a time of crisis like this, trying to put your head in the sand and pretend you don’t exist is counter-productive. Keep your consumers reassured that you’re still in business, that you’re still the nation’s favourite and once this all settles down you’ll all be stuffing your faces with Dairy Milk again. Won’t you?

But is there something we’re not being told here? The reporting of this story puts the slant on Cadbury having pulled the idents, but could this be spin from ITV? Has the channel itself requested the removal of Cadbury’s name to protect the reputation of Coronation Street as the nation’s favourite soap and keep its hands squeaky, cosily clean? That, in the grand scheme of things, would make a great deal more sense and a move I couldn’t argue with.

When the idents do come back, I think the Cadbury board should personally go to every viewer’s house, handing out free chocolate in the shape of Fred Elliott at about 7.29 pm. It’d work for me!

Mobile network 3 has announced that the company is looking for ideas for a TV show to be made exclusively for mobiles.

The network already allows the trendiest term in modern media, ‘user generated content’, through its See-Me TV service: if you upload a video, you earn a little bit of cash every time somebody else downloads it.

This new project, though, is to be of a more professional nature:

At a presentation at Bafta [on Tuesday], the company, the UK’s newest network with 3.5m customers, dangled a cash carrot in front of producers. It is looking for a concept or format that will engage the mobile audience and will commit £50,000 to make a pilot of the best idea pitched by the end of July.

The new programme will be broadcast over the network’s 3G channel.

So, put your thinking caps on — but remember some of the lessons learned by MTV, as we described last month:

To be intelligible on screens sometimes smaller than 2 inches by 2 inches, most shots must be close-ups. Producers also have to limit zooming, panning and quick movement, which can blur because of slow streaming rates and because cellphones often deliver only 15 frames of video per second, compared with 30 frames per second on regular television.

We’re coming to the end of the BBC’s own experiment with content especially for mobile phones, with their TARDISODE drama-cum-trailers for Doctor Who. It’s interesting to note, though, that the BBC have pretty much ignored MTV’s rules of thumb, with the result that the episodes don’t really work on mobiles, although they look pretty good streamed from the BBC’s site.

No details yet on entry requirements for 3’s competition, or where to send your ideas to — we’ll bring you more when we get it. A personal plea, though — make your ideas much easier to understand than those horrible adverts for the phones themselves. No singing cherries, floating jellyfish, musical capsules or flying silk sheets, please!

More from the lovely Paul Jackson, who was on ebullient form at yesterday’s Broadcasting Press Guild lunch. This time the topic was Gordon Ramsay and honesty was the dish of the day.

The executive, clearly a little hurt by the expletive-tastic chef’s decision to sign up to Channel 4 for four years, said that he felt let down. Apparently the fiery Ramsay had all but signed on the dotted line — at least, he’d indicated that he was an ITV man on the Saturday of ITV1’s Soccer Aid final.

Sadly a day is a long time in TV land and sure enough by the following Monday, Kevin Lygo was able to rub his hands with glee.

Now on the face of it, Jackson may be saying that Ramsay’s decision was fair enough, all’s fair in love and TV, and that he’s looking forward to having lots of him on ITV1 this autumn (in the form of the American take on Hell’s Kitchen), but here is what he really thinks of the former Glasgow Rangers footballer’s new Channel 4 show:

“If Gordon thought The F-Word was the answer, I don’t know what he thought the question was because The F-Word is a pile of poo. I am not alone in thinking that he has injected a lot of Hell’s Kitchen into the middle of the show.”

Ouch.

Hard to believe, but the all-new TV Today is a month old this week, and what a month it’s been. We’ve seen the troubled ITV announcing major changes to its output, including the slashing of in-house children’s programming. Channel 4 has gone Big Brother crazy (I didn’t) and today launches a streaming TV service via the wonders of broadband.

The BBC has kept quiet about its upcoming tsunami drama and paid Jonathan Ross a huge amount of cash to stop him defecting elsewhere. And Five just keeps hanging on in there like Tim Henman, and we just can’t help but cheer them on.

We admitted to loving Holby City, we loved Sean Tully even more, and even the walking Viagra that is Russell Brand couldn’t escape our steely gaze. And once in a while we may have mentioned how much we adore Doctor Who (well we do, alright?)

But how has it been for you? Is the potent TV Today cocktail mix to your liking, or do we need more vermouth? Do you want more news, more hard-edged comment, more Ant and Dec? In other words, are we getting it right? Don’t be shy and let us know what you think…

Just when you thought it was safe to start switching the TV back on and have a decent chance of avoiding sweaty men knocking balls around, Wimbledon comes along and spoils it all. Oh well. Not to mention the fact that TV listings magazines currently read like one of those old Fighting Fantasy books. If there is no live football tonight, turn to page four and the schedule might look like this. Otherwise, if Argentina thrash Germany and it doesn’t go to extra time and only two goals have been scored, then turn to page 7 and if you’re lucky, Emmerdale might be on at 3am. On ITV4. They’d have better luck turning the Radio Times into an episode of Deal or No Deal…

Thankfully, as last week, there is an oasis of sanity in Still Game (BBC2, Monday 9pm). This brilliant comedy gets better series by series, and in a world where the loss of the sit-com is bemoaned with the regularity of an Edinburgh Castle cannon, it’s good to see this unashamedly traditional comedy still doing business after five series. This week, Jack and Victor offer to decorate Isa’s living room, but go a little further than Homebase in their enthusiasm to get the job done. Brutal one-liners exist in synergy with a great cast of characters – a treat.

Conversely, the jury is still out on Saxondale (BBC2, Monday 10pm) after an intriguingly patchy first episode last week. There’s no faulting Steve Coogan’s performance in this latest vehicle, and now we have the set-up of Saxondale’s world mapped out, this second episode may well bring everything together to be truly great (much as Tim Henman says to himself every year around this time).

Technically outside our remit of drama, comedy and light entertainment, the dawn of a new series of Property Ladder (C4, Wednesday 8pm) is always worth mentioning. If there was a religion devoted to the property goddess that is Sarah Beeny, I’d be first in line at the altar to worship. She’s like your best ladette mate fused with schoolmistress charm, and you ignore her advice at your peril. But, ignore it they do, these fools who arrive week in and week out to do up their recent property purchases. Will they ever learn? Let’s hope not.

I’m the first to admit that I can have some strange leanings in my viewing habits, but even I spend sleepless nights worrying about my soft policy on Holby City (BBC1, Thursday 8pm). I might even go as far as believing it to be compellingly plotted, excellently acted and tightly directed, but some of you might start suggesting stronger medication. By comparison, Casualty feels like it’s stuck in 1987. This week, the magnificent Connie Beauchamp has some probing questions to ask Elliot Hope… You see? Brilliant!

Finally (a word Tim Henman has to look up in the dictionary) there is Coup! (BBC2, Friday, 9pm), a satire on Sir Mark Thatcher’s involvement in the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea from the pen of John Fortune. Robert Bathurst is Thatcher, with Jared Harris as Simon Mann, who tapped Thatcher for a loan and a helicopter like you might borrow a tenner from your dad. This is bound to be controversial, and so it should be, but the satirical bent seems at odds with what are quite weighty issues. After her recent turn in The Line of Beauty, Caroline Blakiston climbs the political ladder to the very top here, getting to play Mrs T herself. One to watch, if only to see where the fallout starts and ends.

Oh, and finally, come on Tim! Or not…

Dynasty, Starsky and Hutch, Hart to Hart, Charlie’s Angels, Beverley Hills 90210, Fantasy Island, erm… Matt Houston. All TV icons, and today the television industry mourns the loss of one of the greats, Aaron Spelling, the producer mogul who died yesterday, having brought these and many other TV shows to the screens

Even if you didn’t know his name, chances are the Spelling stamp is on one of your much favoured childhood favourites, whether it be the roaring excesses of uber-cops Starsky and Hutch, the graceful charms of those three little girls Charlie’s Angels, or the opulent sleuthing of Hart to Hart (Jennifer Hart who was, by the way, “gorgeous!”).

In a career that stretched way back to the mid-1950s, Spelling had something of a delicious Midas touch, casting beautiful people to populate his shows, exemplified in the anti-Dallas, Dynasty, and teen soap Beverley Hills 90210, controversially featuring his daughter Tori that had the masses screaming nepotism. Guilty pleasures is a phrase that could be assigned to a great deal of Spelling’s output, and even fare like Sunset Beach seemed deliberately pitched to be garbage of the highest order, but easily the most watchable commodity Five had in its arsenal before the arrival of CSI. Even as recently as 2006, I’ll happily admit to sneaking a look at Charmed on a Saturday night over a tub of Ben and Jerry’s before heading to the pub.

But it’s in the cosy hinterland of the mid-seventies and early eighties that Spelling’s work will spark the most nostalgic pub conversation fodder. Not all Spelling shows crossed the Atlantic, but he did have a talent for midwifing product that travelled well. Starsky and Hutch was essential dressing-gown-on-the-sofa viewing for any red-blooded eight-year-old on a Saturday night in 1977, and TJ Hooker put Captain Kirk in a cop uniform. Best thing ever! Even Hart to Hart had a part to play on those post bath Sunday evenings, bringing those queasy butterflies that there was school to go to the following morning, but it wasn’t here until the closing titles finished and bed beckoned.

Generations of TV viewers have a lot to thank Aaron Spelling for, but the likes of Joan Collins, William Shatner and John Forsythe owe him a greater debt – a sizeable pension in syndication repeat fees…

From the week on TV Today:

• Are ITV’s cuts the way to success?
• Square Eyes: 24-25 June
• Are you ready for your close-up?
• Heartbeat country
• Channel 4 to simulcast TV shows on broadband
• The curtain comes down on Top of the Pops
• Brandwagon, part II: the supremo strikes back
• Love thy MBE
• ITV pulls out of in-house children’s television
• More Freeview homes = good news for ITV?
• The Brand bandwagon rolls on
• Square Eyes: 19-23 June

Elsewhere on The Stage:

• Dyke will front C4 TV talent search
• Santer becomes EastEnders chief as Harwood promoted
• C4 to simulcast shows on broadband
• BBC1 to broadcast ‘historical ER’
• Top of the Pops dropped after 42 years
• ITV axes award-winning children’s production arm
• Universal Music to partner C4 Radio in licence bid
• It’s All Over for BBC comedy sports quiz
• Queer Eye star Bennett to host Gaydar radio show
• Freeview on course to overtake Sky
• Housewife wins Channel 4 playwright reality show
• ITV agrees Pact deal on new media rights
• Sky One lands Kylie cancer fight interview
• BBC1 to stage dance talent search
• TV Review: Harry Venning reviews The Play’s The Thing, The Singing Estate and Drop Dead Gorgeous

This week, ITV bosses laid out their plans to cope with the shortfall in advertising income that they’re facing. But is their proposed solution really going to help — or plunge them into more trouble?

Simon Shaps, ITV’s director of television, laid out this week the cuts that the company hopes will contribute a £100m reduction in the company’s expenditure. It’s going to cut back significantly on the number of one-off and two-part dramas that it puts out, instead concentrating on longer-running series that can be made more cheaply.

But at the same time, Shaps wants to improve ITV1’s performance in the advertiser-friendly markets of young, upmarket viewers who are currently staying away from the channel in droves. And like it or not, that takes money.

Part of the company’s plans include an extra payout to its shareholders of £200 million — taking the total cash returned to shareholders to £500m in 2006. I’m not a broker or city analyst, so maybe that may make sense in the world of the stock markets — although analysts responded by downgrading their opinions of ITV’s stock to one level above ‘junk’. Surely, though, that money could be better spent on improving the quality of the broadcasters’ content? Just think what half a billion pounds could buy in terms of well-made, interesting programmes that make ITV’s portfolio of channels a genuine destination again. Cutting the amount of money instead makes me worry that ad revenues will continue to fall, as the viewers ITV already has defect to channels that believe in spending money on decent programming.

The pool of TV ad income is getting smaller, of that there’s no doubt. As multichannel television takes hold in the UK, there are also more channels fishing for the lucrative ad contracts than ever before. Right now, it feels as if ITV are responding by throwing away their well-made fishing gear, and replacing it with a piece of twine on a stick.

Square Eyes has had a tough old time this week — not so much picking out the best of this weekend’s telly, but working out when the blithering heck anything’s on. With the BBC having the rights to England’s second round World Cup game, everything depended on whether they finished top or not. Apparently that’s been decided (I wouldn’t know — Michael Owen is the only reason I ever watch football, so I lost interest after 58 seconds of the Sweden match), so things may start to settle down a little on the scheduling front. However, every World Cup match from now on could be subject to extra time and penalties, so be prepared for last-minute changes.

On to Saturday, then, and we’re sticking with a sport theme(ish), with this week’s slice of Doctor Who (7pm BBC1), which visits London just in time for the opening of the 2012 Olympics. Rather than heading straight to the stadium, though, the Doctor and Rose get sidetracked by mysterious goings-on in the newly-built Dame Kelly Homes Place, where a children’s drawings are coming to life… It’s a curious episode this week, and not one that will be to all tastes — but as next week sees the start of the climactic end-of-series two-parter, a change of pace is welcome.

Over on Channel 4, The Play’s The Thing (8.15pm) reaches its own finale. Of course, by now everybody knows which play has won, and with press night happening last night, the reviews are out. It’s kind of going against TV Today’s remit to say this, but if you want to see great, experimental theatre by new writers, you don’t need to wait until a reality TV show covers one play — there’s loads of great stuff going on in fringe theatre all over the country all year round.

Staying with theatre, the last in the current run of The Culture Show (8.40pm, BBC2) sees comedian Danny Robins come to the end of his ‘Supersize Shakespeare’ experiment, where he attempted to see all 37 of the bard’s plays in just 30 days.

Skipping to Sunday, and for the young and young at heart, there’s The Children’s Party at the Palace (6pm, BBC1), a celebration of children’s literature and TV entertainment. Some specially-written Harry Potter scenes are promised, together with The Queen’s Handbag, a live show with a bunch of characters from all branches of children’s entertainment.

Something not for the children — although arguably still juvenile — is Best Ever Spitting Image (10pm ITV1), showcasing the classic satirical puppet show. While the series itself was patchy at the best of times, this hour-long show (presented by new puppet forms of Ant and Dec) is full of some of the best bits, as well as interviews with some of the voice talents and the personalities who had the mickey taken out of them so mercilessly. If that doesn’t satisfy your appetite for latex tomfoolery, ITV4 has two episodes starting at 11pm.

I’ve just had an interesting conversation with a writer from The Times, who’s preparing a piece for Saturday’s paper on the implications of HDTV on actors.

I think he’s aiming for the same sort of angle as this one featured on TV Predictions, which tries to make out that HDTV is going to be the primary cause for Hollywood celebrities running to the nearest cosmetic surgeon — as if they don’t do that already. After all, cinema screens are far larger than TV screens; any perceived defects are going to be far more visible when they’re projected to many times larger than natural size.

I’m not an actor, of course — and therefore am more than willing to be corrected by someone who is — but my perception is that most actors will be more concerned about (a) where the next job’s coming from and (b) that they’re giving a good performance — or at least a good enough performance that they’ll secure the job after that. Those are concerns that have been around since before the dawn of television, and they won’t change.

Truth is, away from the Hollywood obsessions with perfection that drive normally sane women to starve themselves until they’re stick thin, just so they can land that dream role on Desperate Housewives, our greatest performers are loved not in spite of their flaws, but in many cases because of them.

If HDTV is going to bring any workplace challenges, it’s far more likely to affect the make-up artists, set designers, costume makers and directors of photography who, along with the actors, have to convince us, the viewing public, that we’re watching real people in a real environment. The new technologies will make any corner-cutting that much more visible.

The actors, of course, have a role to play too — to be as realistic in their portrayal of their character as they possibly can be. And, despite what any journalist would have them think, no amount of nips, tucks or face-paralysing Botox injections can help you with that.

Even bloggers with their finger on the pulse of this business we call telly need a holiday from time to time, so this week finds me on a family break in the North Yorkshire Moors. Not particularly interesting in itself, but I’m sitting writing this over a pint of foaming local Stella in The Goathland Hotel, aka The Aidensfield Arms, pub of choice to characters of that ITV perennial, Heartbeat.

Goathland, which doubles as Aidensfield, is a blink and you’ll miss it place, pub on one side, garage on the other. But the ratings phenomenon that is Heartbeat brings coach loads to this remote little village all year round. I can’t ask the residents what they think about this perpetual intrusion into their lives as I haven’t actually seen any residents, but the few shops and B&Bs in the locality must do very nicely off the back of tourists and regular visits from the Heartbeat crew. And if I didn’t know better, I’d say the train station down the road is where the Hogwarts Express pulls into, so that must bring the kiddies in too.

TV locations are a curious thing. The bar of the Goathland Hotel (ITV shoots interiors for the Aidensfield Arms here too) is plastered with postcards, pamphlets and general Heartbeat bumf, but the bar staff seem reticent to answer questions on the subject. They’ve even produced a book of the 18 frequently asked questions, which can be yours for a quid, so you don’t have to. But on the whole, everybody seems quite happy with the reciprocal arrangement that brings a few thousand pensioners streaming into the area every year.

But, if Heartbeat ever went to year round production, Goathland would be dumped quicker than you can say “Theme tune sung by Nick Berry” for a dedicated back lot, much as happened when production was ramped up on Emmerdale to its current insane levels of output. Somewhere in the village of Esholt stands the original location for The Woolpack, once a destination for coach trips, now a sadly neglected location from a bygone era of TV production (but I’m sure the beer is still lovely). Ever since Granada closed its backstage tour theme park, the public are now denied the opportunity to wander down Coronation Street itself. Back in my time there as a tour guide in my post university days, Corrie’s requirements for filming on the Street set amounted to a couple of days a week, if that. This gave plenty of time for the masses to have their pictures taken outside the corner shop and buy a Rovers Return teapot from the giftshop that is now the doctor’s surgery. If the park was open now, I doubt the Street set would be open at all due to the demands of the filming schedule, now magnified to ridiculous levels.

So, from a jolly piece about being on holiday, I’ve turned this into a rant about the outrageous levels of soap production. I appeal to soap producers everywhere - slash the number of episodes and let your adoring public walk down Coronation Street once more. It’s your national duty!

[Ed’s note: Expanded story is now available in our news section] Channel 4 is to air its commissioned programmes simultaneously on the main channel and on broadband, making it the first major UK broadcaster to launch a service of this type. Chief executive Andy Duncan said that broadcasters had to start thinking of new media as the “now media”.

Talking at the New Statesman annual media lecture, he said:

I don’t see the digital revolution as an attack on Channel 4’s power as a public broadcaster. I see it as a fantastic opportunity to build on what Channel 4 has always done - stimulate, infuriate, debate, create. The difference is we’re doing it in many more ways than just via broadcast these days, because we have to engage with the public wherever they are.

The new broadband simulcast will be available to PC users from June 27 via the channel4.com website but will not include films or acquired shows such as Lost and Desperate Housewives. At launch it will still carry the same commercials as the television channel, but the broadcaster plans to see advertising on the broadband service once it has been established. Registered users will be able to access a streamed live version of the Channel 4 schedule, allowing them to watch Channel 4’s flagship shows at the same time as their TV transmission.

It started back on January 1, 1964 — and will finish on July 30 this year. Yes, pop warhorse Top of the Pops is finally getting the axe, leaving goggle-eyed telly waif Fearne Cotton with just seventeen remaining TV presenter jobs (honestly, the girl’s everywhere - she’s even doing Love Island later this summer).

It’s hard to put one’s finger on exactly what went wrong with TOTP. Being tied in to the singles chart, which latterly became more subject to the caprice of the record pluggers and less about the public’s musical taste, didn’t help. Arguably, the real problems started when the show moved to Friday nights, immediately robbing it of that crucial Friday morning “did you see?” conversation piece in the nation’s schoolgrounds. More recently, the advent of 24-hour music jukebox TV channels, and saturation coverage of artists and performers on all the other channels, have denied TOTP the unique position it once enjoyed.

Ironically, as a show, Top of the Pops is arguably stronger now than it has been in a long while. Hiring Andi Peters as executive producer, much scorned at the time, was a sensible move — having created Channel 4’s successful T4 strand, and before that, The Noise, ITV’s long-forgotten Saturday morning precursor to CD:UK (itself now axed, although it’ll be resurrected in its new home on Five soon), the show gained a confidence in itself that had been missing for a long time. With a dwindling audience it didn’t feel like it could take the risks it once did, but was not much the worse for all that.

Alas, the move to Sunday nights on BBC2 gave the first signs that the Beeb, while not wanting to euthanise their long-running brand, were at least content to let it wither away out of sight.

So in a few week’s time, we’ll only have our memories of a great TV show left. And while I am of course far too young to remember Pan’s People in their glory days, I still smile whenever I hear Dexy’s Midnight Runners singing Jackie Wilson Said — remembering their TOTP performance in front of a giant blow-up picture of darts player Jocky Wilson. Ah, the glory days…

Having written a perfect riposte to the Brandwagoners (even if I do say so myself) from my suitably lofty high horse yesterday, I took myself off for a rare night of non-broadcast related fun to see Market Boy at the National.

Being the polite sort I put my phone on silent and sat back to enjoy the show (which, incidentally, is a lot of fun) but nipped out at the interval to check my voicemail and rather was amazed to have a rather long list of Russell Brand related messages.

Sadly most of these blog readers seem to be more focused on my private life, how one whores round a barbecue, and of course who and how many of said friends have been involved in the described entanglements with the gothic creature.

Thankfully just as I was starting to think that the salacious (or otherwise) snippets had taken away from the case I was making, ITV entertainment supremo Paul Jackson drops me a line, telling me that while he loves the piece, word that he is planning to work with the popular comic is just industry speculation. He cheerfully adds:

“I am not talking to him, for precisely the reasons you outlined in your article.”

Phew. For a moment I thought that I was going to become part of the phenomenon I was questioning. Oh and one more thing while I’ve got your attention, the network are lining up a new all-star show called Benidorm as part of their charge back into the comedy world. Details to come in the next few days…

Rudolph Walker’s name in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list to receive an MBE was a very welcome nod for a great actor. Walker has been a backbone of the EastEnders rosta for a good few years now as Patrick Trueman, when the comings and going in the Square have been getting silly. It would be easy to say he received the MBE for having to endure Patrick’s ridiculous affair with Pat (surely the most hideous soap sight since the last time Ken and Deirdre had a good snog up). But that’s too flippant and easy – Walker has been a face on British TV for years, always able to turn some fairly workaday lines into a credible performance (witness The Thin Blue Line for starters).

Patrick Trueman aside, Walker is still best known for a role that still divides cultural commentators to this day (although audiences at the time didn’t need much persuading to tune in in their millions). As Bill Reynolds in Love Thy Neighbour, he underwent a weekly dose of racist outbursts from next door neighbour Eddie Booth (Jack Smethhurst). Love Thy Neighbour has long since been banished to the land of TV taboo, but I always wonder how many of its detractors have sat through an episode…

For some bizarre reason, the caretaker of my building has an entire run of Love Thy Neighbour on DVD, and thought I might like to borrow them. For fear of causing offence, I took the proffered box set, intending to keep them for a couple of weeks, unwatched, but found myself later that night drawn to firing the DVD player up. And I was surprised – not pleasantly, because it is awful in the way that only 1970s sitcoms can be. And yes, the dodgy expressions of racism are all present and correct. But this aside, as a product of its cultural backdrop, it’s very well written, and Walker does not play the oppressed minority. His character is just as posturing, macho and narrow-minded as his nemesis and frequently comes off looking just as stupid. It is the wives of these idiots, played by Kate Williams and Nina Baden-Semper who know exactly how things are in the world and are portrayed as intelligent, forward thinking women. For the 1970s, that’s pretty progressive. And if you want to see an example of what people wrongly accuse Love Thy Neighbour of being, try and seek out a copy of the thoroughly hateful and risible Curry and Chips.

So to Mr Walker, a tip of the hat, a raise of the glass, for a MBE well earned. And when critics try to tell you Love Thy Neighbour is something that it wasn’t, just smile knowingly and nod.

ITV has confirmed that it is to shut down its in-house children’s television department, although it hopes to sell it off as a going concern.

Staff at production units in London, Manchester and Leeds are affected by the closure, according to MediaGuardian.

“We can confirm that we are consulting on the disposal of ITV Productions Kids,” the spokesman said.

“The decision is part of [an] ongoing process of restructuring within ITV Productions, and ITV plc more generally, to improve efficiency in the business.

“The ITV Productions Kids unit has been responsible for many great children’s programmes, and ITV Productions Kids content will continue to be seen on ITV for some time to come.”

Notice they don’t say ITV1 — as pointed out yesterday, there is next to no children’s programming on the broadcaster’s terrestrial channel during the World Cup, despite ITV’s public service commitment to a minimum of eight hours.

It is claimed that part of the reason for ITV shying away from children’s TV is Ofcom’s proposed ban on junk food advertising, which is predicted to lose the industry £140m in ad revenues, as well as ITV’s poor advertising performance overall. The two elements together mean that the broadcaster has to concentrate on markets where it knows it can make money — especially important when the company is seen as ripe for takeover: we have to stop fat kids, but the fat cats roll on…

The news that Freeview is catching up with, and may overtake, Sky in the digital subscriber stakes is a little bit of good news for ITV. The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) quarterly report into the state of the TV marketplace shows that, although all five terrestrial channels have lost audience share in the last two years, ITV1 has a far greater share in Freeview households than on any other digital platform.

Part of the reason for that is both the channel and the platform have a skew towards the older end of the population. That’s also a risk for ITV, as the 55+ market rarely attracts the sort of advertising income that are spent on younger audiences. The Guardian notes:

According to industry estimates, next month [ITV1’s ad revenues] will fall 18.3% year-on-year and slip 13.4% in August. If those trends continue, advertising turnover at ITV1, the main source of profitability at ITV plc, will fall 11% this year to £1.4bn.

And of course, with lower ad revenues comes the threat of smaller programme budgets — thus meaning fewer quality programmes, whilch means lower ratings… and so the cycle goes on.

At the other end of the scale, the children’s market is one that could really benefit from the uptake of digital TV. ITV1 is still the strongest terrestrial channel for children’s viewing — a share of 14.7% compared to BBC1’s 13.8% — but the accumulated non-terrestrial share is a whopping 53.1%. Of course, the BBC’s two children’s channels have recently been joined by ITV’s own CITV — but just as it’s getting started, there’s next to no children’s television on ITV1 with which to promote the new channel. While the BBC pioneered cross-channel promotion with its CBBC and CBeebies strands on terrestrial, World Cup coverage has reduced the amount of CITV programming on ITV1 (excluding GMTV’s weekend cartoons) to a paltry half an hour this week.

Without an effective shop window for their nascent channel, ITV could find themselves falling behind in the children’s market, too.

Russell Brand. Everyone’s talking about him, sleeping with him, or trying to hire him. Love him or loathe him he makes great fodder for idle conversation and for showbiz hacks on slow news days.

I’d like, if I may, to use my life as an example. For the past three months whichever dinner party, barbecue, birthday bash or media mela I whore myself around to, some bright spark brings him up. Around the same time I came to notice that a small but perhaps disproportionate percentage of my friends -– all from different parts of my life -– have had some kind of sexual entanglement with the gangly one. Most recently of all I’ve found myself in whispered conversation with execs from ITV, Channel 4 and the BBC all telling me in hushed tones that they have had suitably dramatic lunches or meetings with the walking addiction, talking over the idea of giving him a show on TV or on radio.

Of course, a fling with Kate Moss helps, but all in all, this is the sort of blanket coverage that PRs and agents drool over. And as the hype snowballs so do audiences and it seems executives panic that they are missing out on the next big thing.

Now Brand is an intelligent, not half-bad comic in his own right, so news that he is penning a BBC radio show makes sense, and his zany madcap on-screen persona appeals to the holy grail 16-24 demographic and does pretty well for E4 and Channel 4 when cocooned in the world of Big Brother. So there is potential for him to develop well –- although speaking to the ever-twinkly Kevin Lygo last week, he seemed somewhat more reticent of the idea of a Brand-centred series at this stage than recent reports would suggest.

The problem with such bandwagon hiring and signing is that it doesn’t always make sense longer term. Industry folk might be getting lost in the spiel and pegging him as the answer to Jonathan Ross, but it’s worth noting that Brand’s show for MTV does pretty appallingly in the ratings. Now it might be the broadcaster, it might be the vehicle or it might be Brand so I agree it’s important to test talent, but I suspect for a few this is more about the ready-made column inches than anything else.

One source tells me that ITV are pretty keen to have him to front some sort of Ross/Parky-esque chatshow. Now I know they are trying to overhaul their image at the moment, with the fabulous Paul Jackson spearheading the way, but having failed to secure the likes of Gordon Ramsay et al despite offering the big bucks, to be honest this latest potential signing just smacks of desperation.

When an actor is associated with one role above all others, any new creation from the performer is always going to be viewed with suspicion, and so Steve Coogan attempts to give Alan Partridge’s Pringle sweater to a charity shop once more as Saxondale (Monday BBC2 10pm) arrives. Tommy Saxondale is an ex-roadie fallen on hard times, now forced to run a pest control business. He’s corpulent, rude and thinks he’s God’s gift to just about everything. As it’s got the pedigree of Coogan behind it, Saxondale is clearly going to be worth a look, but the inherent unpleasantness of the character misses the Captain Mainwaring rule of comedy, so expertly observed by David Brent. It’s okay to be unklikeable, but make sure your audience can pity you. Thankfully, Coogan has able support from Ruth Jones, (Little Britain’ s Myfanwy), who clearly should be for Wales what Ashley Jensen is to Scotland.

After complaining so vociferously about the lack of decent comedy in the schedules not so long back, my cup it seems doth runneth over with mirth early this week. Preceding Saxondale and bookending a repeat of The Catherine Ta