Archive for August, 2009

X-Factor winner Alexandra Burke will battle finalists JLS for the best newcomer gong at this year’s Music of Black Origins (MOBO) awards. They will also face competition from eurovision star Jade Ewen, Laura Izibor and Master Shortie.

JLS’s single ‘Beat Again’ will also compete for the best song award, against N-Dubz’ ‘Strong Again’, Tinchy Stryder’s ‘Number One’, Chipmunk’s ‘Diamong Rings’, and ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ from K.I.G. family.

N-Dubz and Chipmunk have picked up the most nominations, with four nods each, while Beyoncé, Dizzee Rascal and Tinchy Stryder will each compete in three categories.

Lady GaGa will face competition from Beyoncé, Eminem and Jay Z in the prestigious ‘Best International Act’, whilst Canadian singer Diana Krall with be up against jazz veteran Herbie Hanckock and last year’s winner Yolanda Brown for Best Jazz Act.

This year’s MOBO Awards will take place on 30th September in Glasgow - the first time the ceremony has been held outside of London.

Peter Andre is to join ITV’s This Morning as a showbusiness reporter as the flagship daytime show undergoes a major revamp.

ITV2 received its best audience figures of the year with the one-off reality programme Peter Andre: Going It Alone, about the singer’s split from his wife Katie Price. On this morning, Andre will use his celebrity connections to offer “additional showbiz reporting”.

This Morning’s 21st series, which begins on Tuesday, will see Andre joined by a host of other celebrity presenters, including the designers Linda Barker and Danielle Proud, the gardener Diarmuid Gavin and the chef Jean-Christophe Novelli.

The show will also receive a major face-lift, including a new title sequence and theme music, as Holly Willoughby takes up her new position of co-host on 14th September. The changes mark the biggest branding overhaul since the programme moved from Liverpool to London in 1996.

(more…)

Channel Five, BSkyB and ITV2 have all said they will not bid for Big Brother when the series becomes available in 2011, despite the insistence of media buying executives that the show’s youth-oriented format will continue to attract advertisers.

Richard Woolfe, the channel controller at Five, said the show did not suit the “new direction” the channel was hoping to take.

“Big Brother has been an amazing phenomenon but, in terms of the new direction Five is taking, we are looking for big original ideas,” Woolfe added. “Big Brother now needs to be off our screens for a few years before anyone can consider reinventing it and bringing it back.”

(more…)

Channel 4 has confirmed that it is to axe Big Brother following its eleventh series, to be screened next summer. Another series of Celebrity Big Brother will be broadcast in January before Channel 4’s association with the show comes to an end.

The broadcaster has announced that it will not be renewing its decade-long contract with Big Brother producer Endemol following diminishing viewer numbers for the reality show. Channel 4 is currently locked in a £180 million three-year deal with the Dutch producer, meaning there will be an eleventh series of the show that made celebrities out of housemates such as Jade Goody.

Channel 4 has said it will use the axing of Big Brother, which has provided the backbone of Channel 4’s summer schedule for almost a decade, for the “most creative overhaul” in its 27 year history, with £20 million being allocated to “event drama” such as the critically acclaimed Red Riding and The Devil’s Whore.

(more…)

US cable network MTV is to remake the channel 4 teen drama Skins for an American audience, promising to “preserve the authenticity” of the UK version, which includes graphic scenes of drinking, drug abuse, swearing and casual sex.

MTV won the rights to develop the drama, which attracted audiences of over a million during its three series broadcast on Channel 4’s digital channel E4, after two years of “intense competition”, according to the network.

As with the original British series, MTV will draft in young writers in their teens and twenties to work on script for the American show, which will be set in Baltimore, Maryland.

Father and son team Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain, who created the original British version of Skins, will write and executive produce the new US version, which is created by Elsley’s independent production company, Stormdog, and Company Pictures. The co-founders and managing directors of Company Pictures, Charlie Pattinson and George Faber, will also executive produce the US version.

(more…)

The BBC is to revive Junior Masterchef, after an overhaul of the adult version brought high ratings for the show.

Junior Masterchef will follow the adult format of the show, Masterchef,  with amateur chefs aged between nine and 12 years old competing to create a prize-winning two course meal in the space of an hour. The programme will air on the CBBC children’s channel at the end of the year.

The original version of Masterchef, which was fronted by Loyd Grossman, ran on BBC1 between 1990 and 2001. A spin-off children’s version of the show, called Junior Masterchef, was launched in 1994 and ran until 2000.

In 2005 BBC2 revived the adult Masterchef, with John Torode and Gregg Wallace presenting. Following high ratings, the revamped show will move to BBC1 for its next series which begins in January. Spin-off professional and celebrity versions of the show have also aired.

(more…)

Channel 4 has announced it is to broadcast a special week of 3D programming.

This autumn, viewers will be able to watch a series of programmes in 3D, including previously unseen footage of the Queen during her coronation year. Channel 4 will broadcast the programmes in ColorCode 3D, which makes images appear to jump out from the screen when viewed with special 3D glasses.

The two hour-long episodes tell the story of former cameramen Bob Angell and Arthur Wooster, now both in their 80s, who filmed a 3D colour newsreel called Royal Review.

The newsreel includes footage of the Queen at events she attending before and after her coronation in 1953, including her journey to the coronation service itself. Further footage shows the Queen attending the Epsom Derby and a trip down the Thames on the Royal Barge.

(more…)

9.9 million viewers tuned into the new series of The X-Factor, which kicked off on Saturday night, according to early viewing figures.

The opening programme of series six averaged 9.91m (47.9%) for ITV1 between 7pm and 8.30pm. The audience is down slightly on the opener for series five, which averaged 10.19m (48.2%) on August 16 last year.

The show’s launch featured the usual mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly from auditions held in London, Manchester and Glasgow. For the first time in the show’s history, the auditions took place in front of a live audience along with celebrity judges, Cheryl Cole, Dannii Minogue, Louis Walsh and Simon Cowell.

Things got off to a dodgy start when two twin sisters from Lithuania gave an ear-splitting rendition of Robbie Williams’ Angels, which failed to impress the panel. Cowell compared their voices to the sound of “cats being squashed” while the other judges advised the duo stick to their modelling day jobs.

(more…)

The BBC, ITN and Sky say they have not changed their plans for covering the election in Afghanistan, despite the fact that the Afghan government has officially banned media organisations from reporting on any violence during the polls.

The BBC, whose Persian TV service broadcasts by satellite to Afghanistan, has said it will continue to cover the election, which began yesterday, as planned.

“We have a duty to our audiences to report on the situation in Afghanistan fairly and accurately, and we will continue to do so,” a BBC spokesman said.

Sky and ITN, which produces news for ITV and Channel 4, also indicated that their plans for covering the election had not changed.

(more…)

Hundreds of hours of BBC content, including episodes of Top Gear and Dr Who, are to be made available via the UK online video service Blinkbox, under a deal with BBC Worldwide.

Popular titles on DVD, such as Top Gear, Gavin & Stacey, Spooks and Planet Earth, will cost users £1.89 per episode to download from Blinkbox, with the price of a full series to be confirmed.

Viewers can download other BBC shows including Hustle, Hotel Babylon and older series of Dr Who free, but the programmes will carry ads. Content from BBC Worldwide will be made available on the TV streaming service a minimum of 180 days after broadcast on TV.

Blinkbox, which has already struck deals with a number of US studios and production companies, plans to market itself as the one-stop-shop for US and UK TV.

(more…)