Television

This post has been amended (02/02) after Andy Duncan says that he had been misquoted. He did not say, apparently, that a C4-Five merger was inevitable, and a Media Guardian story on this point has been removed. What he apparently said was that a merger for Five (with ITV or Sky) “will happen at...
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Two questions – why does that 7.59pm news summary on BBC1 exist and why is it presented by the woman from Newsround, talking as if she is reading out the days events to a seven year old with learning difficulties? The awkward little slot comes with no warning,
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Calm, rational analysis from Nicola Methven of the Mirror today on Adam Crozier’s appointment. It’s a fun read, but I think her conclusion — “ITV is heading for oblivion” is, to state the obvious, a bit harsh. You can the duller, balanced and more accurate view
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Debuting Beehive City’s occasional TV review column… How do you celebrate 25 years of a well-loved soap? Get a bunch of teenagers to make a crap version of Hollyoaks – then put it on the internet. Eastenders E20 is a ruefully misjudged attempt at embracing the Youtube generation that follows the fortunes of four youngsters...
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Adam Crozier?!? Beehive City said earlier this week that ITV’s chairman Archie Norman would go for an outsider (although I also thought the appointment would be a little more time in coming). I even guessed that Norman’s old Asda mate Allan Leighton would be the man, but in fact it was his former partner...
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Elisabeth Murdoch, who runs the Shine TV production company, gave an interesting speech about the future of television over in Las Vegas yesterday, entitled ‘Here Comes The Audience’. If you like to keep up with the thinking of the Murdoch clan check out  the write-up in the LA Times and/or Hollywood Today, the latter...
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“From my background, Abraham came before Isaac,” joked Jeremy Isaacs in an entertaining chat on the R4 Media Show about the arrival of David Abraham, Channel 4′s new chief executive, before laying into the Andy Duncan regime.
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ITV versus Channel 4 — who has the best way of picking a CEO? I spoke to a plausible candidate C4 candidate yesterday, who, it turns out wasn’t even contacted about the vacancy. Their criticism was given that the C4 job is a public appointment, the net ought to have been trawled very widely,...
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So, while we are at it, what happened to Peter Fincham…the man who was being described by his friends as the ‘standout candidate’ for C4. Ok, so he is hardly suffering as director of telly at ITV. But having made such an overt play for the C4 job in the autumn, it may not...
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David Abraham is a smart choice for Channel 4. His track record at UKTV, where he took a boring repeats broadcaster and made it trendy just by changing the name of a channel to Dave, gives you hope that he can put Channel 4 on a sensible path. Although his advertising background makes him...
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