Archive for September, 2008

Moira Stewart is to be the new face of HM Revenues and Customs’ tax campaign.

The former BBC News presenter will take over from TV historian Adam Hart-Davis, who has fronted the HM Revenue and Customs’ self-assessment advertising campaign for six years. He told the BBC in February that he would soon be replaced by a “new and more beautiful face”.

“It is great news that Moira’s fronting our self-assessment campaign. She’s a household name that people naturally tune in to and trust,” said HMRC head of marketing Simon Vessey.

The new televised ads, which begin next week, will see Stuart popping up in unexpected places to remind people of the new deadlines for tax returns – 31st October for paper tax returns and 31st January for online tax returns. She will also appear on billboards and posters, in magazines, newspapers and online ads. Hart-Davis’s catchphrase “tax doesn’t have to be taxing” will remain.

In spite of the slogan, Hart-Davis admitted to Radio Five Live that VAT could be “absurdly complicated”, but said that he fully supported the tax system, and that starring in the self-assessment ads had been “huge fun”.

Moira Stewart worked at the BBC for 30 years and was highly respected as a presenter. In her last role, she presented the news on BBC1’s Sunday AM, but lost that slot in the March last year. Veteran presenters including Jeremy Paxman, David Frost and Terry Wogan campaigned to keep her, but to no avail. Stewart, aged 59, claims she was the victim of ageism.

Channel Five is to re-launch its 7pm news programme an attempt to attract more male viewers, with Isla Traquair as the sole presenter. Her co-host Matt Barbet will take over the 5pm programme. Currently the two presenters appear on both shows.

The 7pm show will be given its own identity to differentiate it from the 5pm bulletin, which currently broadcasts the same stories.

David Kermode, editor of Five News, said that the revamped show would better reflect the demographic that it serves, with more men, whilst the 5pm show will be aimed at a more daytime audience. As part of the changes, a team of experts will be brought in to comment and expand on news stories. Whilst the 5pm and 7pm slot will share the same studio, the lighting will be different, as in Channel 4 News and More4 News.

“This is really a kind of revision of what we are doing at 7pm,” Kermode said. “We are looking at what the available audience is at that time.

“The 5pm show has a lot of daytime values to it, although it is still a news programme. What we are trying to do at 7pm, in what is an incredibly difficult slot, is try to evolve and give the show a separate identity. 7pm is a narrative repeat of 5pm at the moment. What I want to look at is can we make it look a bit different and can we tap into a different viewership. We are mindful of who the available audience is and men form a reasonable constituent.”

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High-Def Sky for Half Price

Sky are now offering new and existing customers a Sky+HD box for just £75 – that’s half the original £150 price tag. The offer will run until 31st October. New customers can also benefit from free standard set-up, while set-up is half price for existing customers, or free when taken with Sky Multiroom. The deal is available to customers who subscribe to the Sky HD mix, costing from £27 a month for new customers, or from an additional £10 on the monthly bill of existing customers.

Sky+HD offers the widest range of HD channels in the UK, with 19 available now and a further seven launching in October. HD brings up to four times more picture detail; incredibly vibrant colours and superb quality Dolby® Digital 5.1 surround sound. You can also tune into your favourite HD shows at any time of day or night with Sky Anytime.

A Sky HD+ box also gives you all the features of regular Sky+: You can record up to two programmes simultaneously at the touch of a button; record series’ automatically with series link, and pause and rewind programmes you are currently watching.

“Losing it can, of course, be funny. It’s a loss of control and it’s particularly funny when it happens to other people. But anger can also be embarrassing and shameful. People in positions of responsibility are not supposed to lose their rag. But there are times when we just can’t help it. The pressure builds up, the tension mounts and we search for a means of release.”

Griff Rhys Jones is a man on a short fuse who has by his own admission spent the whole of his career “losing it”. When he’s not the charmer we’re used to he paces up and down, kicks holes in walls, barks incessantly at his long-suffering PA, and spends the early hours composing irate emails to his producers. In this first episode of a two-part series, Rhys Jones takes a look at the universal, but little explored theme of anger, asking why it occurs, whether it can be used for good and what, if anything, can be done to prevent it. He also examines how anger affects us all in everyday life from road rage to family bust-ups. Far less of a detailed psychological inquiry than a “personal journey”, the programme nonetheless provides plenty of factual fodder while still being highly entertaining. Rhys Jones discovers that he explodes with anger far more often than is acceptable, and talks to friends and work colleagues in order to ascertain how his own anger affects those around him. When his former agent admits “Actually, no. It wasn’t at all nice being around your anger,” he is genuinely shocked. However, he admits he has a problem with rage.

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Channel Five has announced the first major rebranding of its main channel since being renamed Five in 2002.

A capitalised logo will appear with the tagline “We are Five” in a marketing campaign across TV, press, billboards and the internet. Five’s on-air identity has been created by advertising agency Dixon Baxi, while off-air advertising is being developed by Grey London.

“We feel this new work is closer to the truth of the brand,” said Five’s head of brand strategy and marketing Carl Ratcliff. “Playfulness and colour sit at the heart of this new identity.”

Five’s head of creative services, Nol Davis, added “The new identity reflects a constantly evolving, energetic and enthusiastic brand and tone of voice. There is real synergy on and off air which reflects a true collaboration between all our creative services and agencies.”

The first major off-air campaign will support Benedict Allen’s global adventure series Unbreakable and the travelogue programme Paul Merton in India.

Five’s new identity marks the most radical branding overhaul since Trevor Beattie and TBWA transformed Channel 5 into Five, using the tagline “See Five”.

British Actors had a disappointing night at the 60th annual Emmy awards last night, despite a stack of nominations.

Just two Brits - Tom Wilkinson and Dame Eileen Atkins – managed to pick up prizes for their supporting roles at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.

Wilkinson won the award for best supporting actor in a miniseries for his role as Benjamin Franklin in the eponymous American period drama John Adams, which focuses on the little-known second President of America. However, he lost out to co-star Paul Giamatti in the category of best actor in a miniseries. Giamatti also beat Britons Ralph Feinnes and Ricky Gervais to the title.

Atkins meanwhile picked up the gong for best supporting actress for her portrayal of Miss Deborah Jenkins in the BBC costume drama Cranford, which was broadcast on American public service broadcaster PBS. The veteran actress beat 39-year-old fellow Brit Ashley Jensen, who was nominated for her role in Ricky Gervais’s Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale.

Neither Atkins nor Wilkinson attended the ceremony.

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BBC4 has commissioned a four-part drama based on the life of the first black officer to lead British troops during the first world war.

The drama is one of a series of BBC programmes commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Armistice, which marked the end of the first world war. Written by actor and award-winning playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah (Elmina’s Kitchen), Walter’s War explores the life of Walter Tull who, as an officer in the British Army, faced not only the horrors of the first world war, but also prejudice from his own side concerning his skin colour. OT Fagbenle, who has appeared in Doctor Who and the Anthony Minghella feature film Breaking And Entering, will take the leading role.

Fagbenle will be joined by Ewan Stewart as Sergeant Fuller and Dugald Bruce-Lockhart as fellow soldier Captain Coombe.

The film will focus on Tull’s service on the front line, as he recovers from trench fever before undergoing officer training, in spite of the bigotry of those in higher ranks.

Before the first world war, Tull was also one of Britain’s first black footballers to play professionally, competing for Tottenham Hotspur and Northampton. He was killed at the second battle of the Somme in 1918 at the age of 29.

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The BBC is setting the pace for online video by employing high definition technology in its iPlayer catch-up service, but the move may see your broadband bills going up.

The corporation has already started encoding shows using H.264 compression, which offers better-quality video that streams at 800 Kbps, plus higher audio quality using the AAC+ format.

The upgrade has been made possible in part because delivery provider Level3, which specialises in distributing online video to internet service providers, has started supporting H.264.

However, the BBC’s decision to switch from delivery provider Akamai to Level3 for its iPlayer seven day catch-up service has provoked criticism from smaller ISPs who say the move will put a great strain on their networks.

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The original Caped Crusader returns

Tomorrow see the first episode of new family oriented fantasy drama Merlin on BBC1.

The 13-part serial focuses on the backstory of the Arthurian legend, and features an ensemble cast including veteran actor John Hurt, who provides the voice of a dragon, former EastEnder and Bionic Woman star Michelle Ryan as an evil sorceress, and Gold Blend shill and Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Anthony Head, as Uther Pendragon, AKA Arthur’s dad. One Foot in the Grave’s Richard Wilson, and Heroes’ Santiago Cabrera, who appears as the Lancelot.

Merlin is set to replace the early Saturday evening slot vacated by Robin Hood and Doctor Who, and is being made by independent production company Shine through BBC Wales, which also makes Doctor Who and Torchwood. According to Julie Gardner, head of drama at BBC Wales, Russell T Davies has been “a huge supporter of Merlin. He immediately saw its potential and proved invaluable in early discussions about how to shape the series for Saturday night.”

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An Eastenders storyline in which a paedophile grooms his teenage stepdaughter has prompted over 200 complaints.

In last Friday’s episode former jail-bird Tony King arrived in Albert Square and was shown passionately kissing 15-year-old Whitney Dean, played by Shona McGarty, before falling onto the teenager’s bed while his girlfriend Bianca, played by Patsy Palmer, was having a bath. The storyline suggests that he manipulated Whitney Dean into a relationship before being sent to prison, and his relationship with Bianca will soon be revealed as a front to hide his interest in her stepdaughter.

Prior to the controversial episode that introduced the new theme 34-year-old Chris Coghill, who plays Tony, said that he expected a backlash from viewers.

“I haven’t prepared myself yet, but I’ll be going out to buy myself a very large hat, wig and a false moustache,” he said.

Over 8 million viewers watched the pre-watershed show. The BBC said that 163 people had made complaints about the plot since it began on Friday. Meanwhile the industry regulator Ofcom received 41 complaints.

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