Archive for September, 2009

Billie Piper is to take the lead role in the television adaptation of Kay Mellor’s stage play, A Passionate Woman. It will be Piper’s first drama since she guest-starred on Dr Who last year.

The BBC1 drama, which also features actors Sue Johnston, Alun Armstrong and Frances Barber, tells the story of a young wife and mother, to be played by Piper, who falls in love with her Polish neighbour during the fifties. Attending the wedding of her son 30 years later, she is overwhelmed by painful memories of her former lover.

Mellor wrote the stage play after her mother admitted to having had an affair many years earlier. It played initially in the West Yorkshire Playhouse, before moving to the West End and being shown around the world.

“Mum and I were washing up one day when she confided in me she’d had an affair before I was born, when she and my dad lived in the poorer area of Leeds,” said Mellor, whose credits include Fat Friends, Playing the Field and Jane Eyre.

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Andrew Davies, creator of racy novel adaptations such as Pride and Prejudice and A Room with a View, has accused the BBC of producing “downmarket” period dramas for an uncritical public.

Davis, whose television adaptations include Middlemarch, Bleak House and Little Dorrit, said that the BBC had axed Anthony Trollope’s The Pallisters and Charles Dickens’ Dombey and Son, both of which he had been developing, in favour of Winifred Holtby’s South Riding and Dickens’ David Copperfield, although neither is expected to air for several years.

“I think, in terms of doing the classics, their position is somewhere near what ITV’s was 10 years ago,” Davies said in an interview in the Radio Times. “Which is, ‘Yes, we’ll do them, but only if they’re big, popular warhorses’. So it’s going downmarket, I guess.”

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If you’re a Freeview user, don’t be surprised to find Channel Five missing from it’s usual slot when you turn your TV on tomorrow.But don’t worry it’s not gone forever - all you need to do is retune your Freeview box.

As well as Channel Five, you’ll also need to retune your Freeview box to get ITV3, ITV4 and some radio stations back on your TV.

This is happening because despite many customers switching over to Freeview from analogue, there are still some half a million UK homes which cannot receive Channel Five.

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Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has called on the BBC to recruit more conservative-minded journalists to its news teams, in order to counter an “innate liberal bias”.

Speaking at a Broadcasting Press Guild lunch on Thursday, Hunt said that the BBC had conceded that those who applied to work there tended to have centre-left views, quoting the corporation’s former political editor Andrew Marr, who in 2007 claimed it had an “innate liberal bias”.

“I wish they would go and actively look for some Conservatives to be part of their news-gathering team, because they have acknowledged that one of their problems is that people who want to work at the BBC tend to be from the centre-left,” Hunt said. “That’s why they have this issue with what Andrew Marr called an innate liberal bias”.

The Tories have criticised the BBC for being too liberal since the eighties, when Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government was in power. A 2007 report commissioned by the corporation found that whilst reporters and producers showed no evidence of a conscious bias, “individuals exercise on occasion a largely unconscious self-censorship out of a misguided attempt to be ‘correct’ in their thinking”.

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Ofcom warned today that regional news services across the ITV network could be losing as much as £64m a year by 2012.

The media regulator is hoping to establish a number of independent news consortia to deliver news across the UK by 2012, when the whole country will have switched over to digital television, to replace the current system of ITV companies providing regional news.

Following a government consultation on the issue, Ofcom said today that Britain’s 15 regional news network licences could be in the red by as much as £64m by 2012, indicating that UK news production may have to be heavily subsidised.
The government’s Digital Britain report, which recommended the use of independent consortia, suggested they could be funded by top-slicing around £130 million a year from the BBC licence fee.

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Alesha Dixon’s first appearance as a judge on Strictly Come Dancing last weekend prompted 272 complaints to the BBC.

In a statement, the BBC offered their full support to Dixon, who won the dance competition in 2007 and took over from Arlene Phillips as a judge on the current series, appearing on both the Friday and Saturday night shows.

“We are delighted with Alesha’s debut performance as part of the judging panel on Strictly Come Dancing and that so many millions tuned in to enjoy the show,” the BBC said.

“Having won the contest in 2007 Alesha understands exactly what it takes to excel as a dancer as well as knowing just what the celebrity contestants are going through in the competition. Her knowledge and direct experience adds a different perspective to the panel which complements the whole judging lineup.”

However, Dixon brushed off the criticism, saying that she would remain on the show.

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BSkyB is to make an official complaint to Ofcom in response to proposals that would force the broadcaster to sell its premium sports and movie channels to rivals such as Virgin Media at prices dictated by the media regulator.

BSkyB chief executive Jeremy Daroch said that if Ofcom’s proposals are pushed through, its pay-TV rivals will get Sky’s premium services “on the cheap”.

“These guys want a free ride. Intervention like this is not a good incentive to encourage people to invest in the UK,” Darroch said.

“[Ofcom] is proposing an unprecedented level of interference in commercial markets. Good regulation does not involve micro-management. Nor does it mean tinkering to reshape an industry so that it matches a spreadsheet in a regulator’s office,” he added.

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The period drama Mad Men, about the advertising industry in 1960s New York, has won an Emmy for best TV drama for the second consecutive year at the Los Angeles awards ceremony. The series has attracted fairly low audience ratings in the States, but has received much acclaim from critics.

American comedy series 30 Rock from Sarah Palin impersonator Tina Fey won a trophy for the third year in a row.

Glenn Close, who plays the ruthless lawyer Patty Hewes in Damages, won the award for best lead actress in a drama series, while best actor in a drama series went to Bryan Cranston for his portrayal of a drug-dealing chemistry teacher in Breaking Bad.

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The BBC director general Mark Thompson yesterday gave a passionate defence of the corporation’s public remit, accusing culture secretary Ben Bradshaw of political meddling.

Addressing a Royal Television Society conference in Cambridge, Thompson asserted that the BBC would “fight tooth and nail to preserve our broad public remit”. However, he conceded that the corporation might cut down its website, which has attracted strong criticism from rival online publishers because of its huge size.

Thompson was responding to an earlier speech made by Bradshaw at the same conference, during which the Labour minister said there “may well be a case” for a smaller licence fee and that “the BBC probably has reached the limits of reasonable expansion”.

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Virgin Media has signed a major deal with Disney to broadcast a raft of children’s shows and movies across Virgin Media’s three entertainment platforms.

The deal includes the addition of the recently launched Disney XD channel, TV on-demand content and HD programming. A range of Disney content will also be made available online.

Disney XD, aimed at 6-14 year olds, will join the existing Disney Channel and Playhouse Disney channels on Virgin Media. With the acquisition of Disney content, Virgin Media subscribers will have access to over 300 hours of children’s television on demand.

The new on-demand content includes popular shows such as Hannah Montana, Phineas and Ferb and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Customers will also have access to hundreds of Disney movies including High School Musical, Camp Rock, and the forthcoming Skyrunners, as well as music videos from bands such as The Jonas Brothers.

Katharine Burns, executive director of content acquisition at Virgin Media said: “Virgin Media has been a pioneer in developing new TV services and our three screens deal with Disney is a perfect example of how driving innovation can benefit the consumer and enhance their viewing experience. As the home of family entertainment, we’re uniquely positioned to give our customers the greatest range of flexibility and choice in their TV viewing, and with great premium content on demand we think kids and families alike are going to love the freedom this Disney deal will bring.”

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