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Channel 4 Prison Drama

Channel 4Director Michael Winterbottom is to lead a Channel 4 drama starring life on Mars actor John Simm that will be filmed over five years.

Called 7 Days, the drama will tell the fictionalised story of a prison inmate, played by Simm, and his relationship with family in the outside world.

His wife will be played by Shirley Henderson.

The drama will combine documentary and fiction and will be shot over five years to allow Winterbottom to explore the relationships in real time.

It will focus on how the imprisonment of a parent affects the lives and development of their children.

The cast will feature actors and non-actors and Winterbottom will use improvisation techniques to develop the story.

Winterbottom said: “I wanted to make a film that showed the relationships within a family growing and changing over a long period of time.

“Rather than compress the time period or resort to using technical ways of showing ageing and time passing, I wanted to take a group of actors and work with them in a real time scale.”

Channel 4 controller of film and drama Tessa Ross said: “7 Days reflects our commitment to produce the most ambitious and innovative films.” waveguide

Very Expensive Commercial




A new television commercial costing £8,000-a-second to air is to be broadcast during Wednesday's Champions League final half-time break on ITV1.

While Liverpool and AC Milan take a break, a 90-second Ford advert featuring cars floating above London landmarks will be seen in 21 countries by up to 80 million viewers.

Ford executives will be hoping their £720,000 advert creates a stir in the same way as commercials during America's Super Bowl where advertisers pay around £43,000 a second.

The commercial, shot in High Definition, is called Desire and was filmed in 30 locations throughout London, including Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and Tower Bridge.

Promoting the new Ford Mondeo, it features suggestions for disposing of your old car.

The life-size model balloons were made using carbon-fibre moulds taken from real cars. They were then filled with helium and floated skywards.

Ford's Stephen Odell said: 'We wanted to reach a wide audience with Desire so the Champions League final felt like the perfect fit, especially because Ford has a longstanding relationship with the Champions League.'

ITV1's coverage of the match starts at 19:00 with the half-time break at about 20:30.
http://www.waveguide.co.uk/news070521.h ... on%20Drama]waveguide[url=[/url]

Record World Audience For The BBC

The BBC’s combined international news services attracted a record global weekly audience of over 233 million during 2006/7 according to independent surveys, the BBC said today.

The global audience figure for the combined services of BBC World Service radio, BBC World television and the BBC’s international online news service bbcnews.com is up 23 million from 210 million last year. Many people used more than one service.

BBC World Service’s weekly radio audience estimate is a record 183 million, up 20 million on last year.

BBC World - the commercially-funded international English language news and information television channel – now has estimated record audiences of 76 million viewers a week; up from 65 million in 2005/6.

The BBC’s international facing online news sites attracted a record 763 million page impressions in March 2007, up from 546 million compared to March 2006. There were a record 38.5 million unique online users across the globe during March 2007, up from 32.8 million a year ago.

BBC Global News Director Richard Sambrook said: “This is a strong and welcome indication that the BBC’s news services are strengthening their impact with audiences around the globe in the highly competitive multimedia age.

“People around the world are increasingly turning to the BBC when they need quality news and information that is independent and trusted,” he said.”

BBC World saw substantial growth in audiences in the Africa, Canada, Egypt, India, Pakistan and the USA.
waveguide

Jeremy Clarkson Rapped By Ofcom

Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson was criticised by media regulator Ofcom today for describing a car as "very ginger beer", rhyming slang for "*****".

In a written ruling, Ofcom said the phrase could offend homosexuals and should not have been used.

Clarkson used the phrase during a discussion with the studio audience about the rounded, two-seater Daihatsu Copen.

An audience member described the car as "gay" and Clarkson replied: "A bit gay, yes -- very ginger beer".

The watchdog said "gay" can be used to mean "foolish, stupid and socially inappropriate, or disapproved of and lame".

But Clarkson's response made it clear he was using the word to refer to homosexual people, Ofcom said.

"This ... meant that the use of the word became capable of giving offence," Ofcom said. "In the context, there was no justification for using the word in this way."

Five viewers complained about the show, broadcast last July on BBC Two.

Ofcom said the BBC had reminded producers and presenters to avoid using derogatory comments about sexual orientation and the matter was resolved. waveguide

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Digital revamp for Radio Times


Mark Sweney - MediaGuardian.co.uk


Ratio Times: has increased its programme listings section by 14 pages to boost digital coverage

A new-look Radio Times has gone on sale today with a redesign to boost coverage of digital programming.

Today's redesign for the weekly magazine dovetails with a major overhaul of the Radio Times website that saw the introduction of guidance on where to legally download TV shows.

The Radio Times has increased its programme listings section by 14 pages as part of the redesign.

Each day now has two pages of listings covering the five main analogue terrestrial TV channels and nine leading digital channels. In addition, six pages of listings now cover a further 70 digital channels.

Other new features include genre pages for sport, music, soaps and living, as well as revamped film, TV and radio sections.

An overhaul of the radio listings will see information on 15 FM and digital stations provided together across two pages each day, divided into genres such as rock, pop, news, sport and spoken word.

Until now, the Radio Times only provided daily listings on the five BBC national analogue radio stations, BBC World Service and Classic FM. Digital listings where confined to one double-page spread for the entire week.

"As the UK gears up for digital switchover our latest changes will ensure that readers get the easiest-to-use and best possible guidance to the potentially overwhelming choices now available," said Gill Hudson, the editor of the Radio Times. [/url]