Archive for the ‘iPlayer’ Category

Graham Norton has been chosen to host the BBC’s New Year celebration show, according to The Sun.

BBC executives have announced that the show will be pre-recorded in December, rather than being shown live, in order to attract more high-profile guests who are likely to have other engagements on New Year’s Eve itself.

The show will take the form of an “entertainment spectacular” based around Norton’s hit BBC1 chat show, but will cut live to BBC Scotland for the traditional Hogmanay celebrations around midnight.

“Landing the show is a coup for Graham as it’s a plum slot - millions tune in,” said a BBC insider. “The idea is for it to be a little bit more family-focused as youngsters will also be watching.”

The last New Year’s Eve event that Norton recorded was at the millennium for Channel 4.

Forsyth has told British viewers they should get a “sense of humour” over the Strictly Come Dancing race row.

The veteran presenter said the nation should accept Anton Du Beke’s “unconditional apology” after he said his celebrity dancing partner Laila Rouass looked like a “Paki”.

Forsyth described Du Beke as a “lovely sensitive guy” who can be a “bit mouthy and can say quick things off the cuff”. He added that in the past Du Beke’s “slip up” would have been shrugged off as a light-hearted comment.

“We used to have a sense of humour about this,” Forsyth told the radio station TalkSport.

“You go back 25, 30, 40 years and there has always been a bit of humour about the whole thing. At one time the Americans used to call us ‘limeys’ which doesn’t sound very nice, but we used to laugh about it. Everybody has a nickname. And Anton is such as sweet guy, it’s such a terrible shame”.

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Strictly Come Dancing instructor Anton Du Beke has apologised “unreservedly” for using the word “Paki” in a conversation with his partner Laila Rouass.

The ballroom dancer denied being racist after an exchange “in jest” with the Footballers’ Wives star during training.

According to the News of the World, Du Beke used the slur two weeks ago after Rouass applied fake tan before filming.

Rouass, who has an Indian mother and Moroccan father, accepted the apology aid the couple had “moved on”.

Du Beke, who also presents the Saturday evening games show Hole in the Wall, said: “I must say immediately and categorically that I am not a racist and that I do not use racist language.

“During the course of rehearsals Laila and I have exchanged a great deal of banter entirely in jest, and two weeks ago there was an occasion when this term was used between the two of us. There was no racist intent whatsoever but I accept that it is a term which causes offence and I regret my use of it, which was done without thought or consideration of how others would react.

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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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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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Gordon Brown has agreed to field a cabinet minister when the BBC’s Question Time invites BNP leader Nick Griffin to share a stage with mainstream politicians.

The prime minister suggested that the justice secretary Jack Straw or the communities secretary John Denham appear alongside Griffin on the political panel programme.

Straw is known to enjoy robust political debate with voters of every hue, regularly addressing constituents in Blackburn from his soap box on a Friday afternoon. However, John Denham is the preferred choice, a Labour spokesman said.

Brown announced his decision to his cabinet on Monday, emphasising that those MPs who opposed sharing a platform with the BNP leader would not come under pressure to appear with him on Question Time. The Welsh secretary, Peter Hain, and the home secretary, Alan Johnson, have already expressed their strong opposition to the move.

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Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton are currently at loggerheads over securing A-list guests for their respective chat shows, according to reports.

Norton’s programme is scheduled to move from BBC2 to BBC1 in the autumn as part of a wider attempt to reach viewers in the 25-44 age range on the channel. The move will pit Norton on an equal footing with Jonathan Ross, who enjoys a prime time slot with his Friday Night programme.

According to the Daily Express, competition between the two hosts and their production teams is becoming “fierce” as they seek to attract the brightest stars from across the pond to take a place on the studio sofa.

A source told the newspaper: “In the past it’s been Jonathan who has had the most prestigious guests, such as Tom Cruise, because his show was on the main channel.

“But that’s gone out of the window as he and Graham are suddenly on a level playing field and things are getting tense.”

In June, Ross criticized Graham Norton’s Totally Saturday on his radio programme, branding the show “not good enough”.

The former world champion tennis player, Martina Hingis, who is currently banned from the sport for cocaine abuse, will join a host of former sports stars and C-list celebrities as a contestant in this year’s series of Strictly Come Dancing.

Banned for two years by the International Tennis Federation in 2008 after twice testing positive for the drug during Wimbledon 2007, Hingis is the most controversial contestant in this year’s Strictly line-up, partnering dancing coach Matthew Cutler.

Hingis will join others from the world of professional sport including former jockey Richard Dunwoody, retired boxer Joe Calzaghe, Olympic long jumper Jade Johnson and the ex-cricketer Phil Tufnell.

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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.

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Sony has announced that it is to make the BBC iPlayer available on its Playstation Network (PSN) for free, along with a new movie streaming service.

The iPlayer catch-up service is currently available only through the PS3’s internet browser, but the new initiative will allow gamers to stream BBC programmes on their consoles using a direct widget linked to the PSN. The move could give a much needed boost to sales of the PS3 console, which has lost out in popularity to the Nintendo Wii.

Sony revealed the news during its official press conference on Tuesday night at the Gamescom exposition in Cologne, Germany.

In addition, Sony has announced the introduction of a new film rental and download service to the PS3 in November, after signing deals with some of the world’s biggest movie studios including 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures Entertainment. Gamers will be able to rent a range of recent releases and archived titles, or download them to the Playstation Portable device.

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