Category Archives: Television & radio

Adults in Great Britain now spending more time on mobiles than watching TV

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Daily average for watching all types of screen is now almost 7.5 hours, annual survey for IPA finds

The amount of time adults in Great Britain spend using their mobile phones has finally overtaken that spent watching TV, according to a report that calculates the daily average for watching all types of screen is now almost 7.5 hours.

For the first time a typical person aged 15 or over spends longer each day on their mobile (three hours and 21 minutes) than on watching a traditional set (three hours and 16 minutes), the annual TouchPoints survey found.

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Ex-Sky News presenter Dermot Murnaghan reveals stage 4 prostate cancer diagnosis

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The 67-year-old, who also worked for ITV, BBC and Channel 4, says he is ‘responding positively to excellent treatment’

The former BBC and Sky News presenter Dermot Murnaghan has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

The 67-year-old announced his diagnosis on social media, saying it was one of stage four advanced cancer.

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Doctor charged with supplying Matthew Perry ketamine agrees to plead guilty

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Salvador Plasencia, who gave Friends star the drug in month leading to overdose, to plead guilty to four counts

A doctor charged with giving Matthew Perry ketamine in the month leading up to the Friends star’s overdose death has agreed to plead guilty, authorities said Monday.

Dr Salvador Plasencia has agreed to plead guilty to four counts of distribution of ketamine, federal prosecutors said in a statement. They said the plea carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, and Plasencia is expected to enter the plea in the coming weeks.

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France to use UK drama Adolescence to teach teenagers about toxic masculinity

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French education ministry follows Britain and Netherlands in incorporating Netflix hit into school curriculums

France has followed the UK and the Netherlands in allowing the Netflix drama Adolescence to be used in secondary schools as part of efforts to teach teenagers about toxic masculinity and online harms.

The French education ministry will offer schools five classes based on excerpts from the critically acclaimed mini-series, which has provoked a global debate about the impact on young boys of misogynistic content online and on social media.

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Hungary’s crackdown on LGBTQ+ content violates human rights, says EU’s top court

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ECJ advocate general condemns ‘stigmatising’ law that bars such content from schools and primetime TV

A Hungarian law banning content about LGBTQ+ people from schools and primetime TV has been found to violate basic human rights and freedom of expression by a senior legal scholar at the European court of justice.

The non-binding opinion from the court’s advocate general, Tamara Ćapeta, issued on Thursday, represents a comprehensive demolition of the arguments made by the Hungarian government defending its so-called childprotection law, passed in 2021.

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Joe Don Baker, tough-guy actor from Walking Tall and Bond films, dies aged 89

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The prolific performer played varied roles – from arms dealer to baseball star – and made the rare switch from Bond villain to Bond good guy

Tough-guy actor Joe Don Baker, a prolific performer in movies as varied as GoldenEye, Cape Fear and Mud, as well as the BBC TV series Edge of Darkness, has died aged 89.

Born in 1936, Baker grew up in small town Texas, and studied business administration at North Texas State College. After a period in the army, Baker moved to New York and joined the Actors’ Studio in the early 1960s, where he was a contemporary of Rip Torn. Baker made his Broadway debut in 1963 with the Actors’ Studio company, appearing in Marathon ’33, about the dance marathons of the Great Depression, and made his film debut in an uncredited role in 1967 in Cool Hand Luke. He also appeared in numerous TV series, including the pilot episode of a western show called Lancer in 1968, the making of which was fictionalised by Quentin Tarantino in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton in Baker’s role.

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Madonna limited series directed by Shawn Levy in the works at Netflix

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Queen of pop will partner with the streamer and Deadpool & Wolverine film-maker for a project on her life and music

A television series on Madonna is in development at Netflix – with participation from the trailblazing pop star.

The 66-year-old singer is partnering with Netflix and the Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy for a limited series about her life and music.

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Trump complains the US media aren’t bending to his will. Aren’t they?

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Despite owners and networks forsaking journalistic independence, Trump continues to threaten journalists

In the telling of Donald Trump and his Republican colleagues, the US media is fake news, stocked with “radical-left monsters” who are guilty of “illegal” reporting on the president.

The reality is different.

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Irish broadcaster requests discussion over Israel’s Eurovision participation

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RTÉ asks European Broadcasting Union for talks after 72 former contestants call for ban on Israeli broadcaster

Ireland’s public broadcaster has asked the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) for a discussion about Israel’s inclusion in the Eurovision song contest, as 72 former contestants called for the Israeli broadcaster Kan to be banned from next week’s event in the Swiss city of Basel.

The director general of Ireland’s RTÉ, Kevin Bakhurst, said in a statement on Wednesday that he was “appalled by the ongoing events in the Middle East and by the horrific impact on civilians in Gaza, and the fate of Israeli hostages”.

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Bill Maher calls Larry David’s satire of his Trump dinner ‘kind of insulting to 6 million dead Jews’

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‘Nobody has been harder … about Donald Trump than me,’ Maher says after fellow comedian compared his meal with US president to meeting Hitler

Bill Maher has responded to Larry David’s satirical essay in the New York Times that compared Maher’s glowing account of having dinner with Donald Trump to dining with Adolf Hitler.

Maher, a vocal critic of Trump in the past, had dinner with the US president and a group of his high-profile supporters, including their mutual friend Kid Rock, on 31 March. On an episode of his talkshow Real Time on 11 April, Maher described Trump as “gracious” and “much more self-aware than he lets on”, saying: “Everything I’ve ever not liked about him was – I swear to God – absent, at least on this night with this guy.”

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Mickey Rourke ejected from Big Brother house over ‘unacceptable behaviour’

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Actor, 72, understood to have used behaviour and language considered threatening against housemate Chris Hughes

The Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke has been kicked out of the Celebrity Big Brother house over “instances of unacceptable behaviour” and “inappropriate language”.

The 72-year-old Bafta winner is understood to have used behaviour and language that was considered to be threatening and aggressive during a task, directed towards his housemate Chris Hughes, a former Love Island contestant. No physical altercation took place, according to the PA news agency.

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Jean Marsh, co-creator of 1970s TV hit Upstairs, Downstairs, dies aged 90

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ITV drama set in aristocratic house in Edwardian London explored class and social change, and won many awards

Jean Marsh, the actor and writer best known for co-creating and starring in the 1970s TV show Upstairs, Downstairs, has died aged 90.

The film-maker Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who was a close friend of Marsh, said she died of complications with dementia in her London home on Sunday.

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Ted Kotcheff, director of First Blood, Weekend at Bernie’s and Wake in Fright, dies aged 94

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Prolific Canadian director also made one of the country’s first internationally successful films, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, starring Richard Dreyfuss

Ted Kotcheff, the prolific Canadian director of films including First Blood, Weekend at Bernie’s, Wake in Fright and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, has died aged 94. His daughter Kate Kotcheff told the Canadian Press that he had died of heart failure on Thursday in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico, where he lived. His son Thomas said: “He died of old age, peacefully, and surrounded by loved ones.”

In an amazingly varied career, Kotcheff’s work ranged from hardhitting TV plays and low-budget features in the UK, to hit Hollywood comedies and prestige-laden award-winners and cult films. Kate Kotcheff said: “He was an amazing storyteller. He was an incredible, larger than life character [and] he was a director who could turn his hand to anything.”

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‘We’re location scouting’: where next for White Lotus and who will star?

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HBO renewed Mike White’s hit drama before third season aired and rumours abound about luxury settings and return of stars

You’ve only just got home from a holiday when you start planning the next one. So it is with the super-rich spa satire The White Lotus. The gunsmoke is still clearing from the finale of the third season but speculation is rife about where the HBO hit will head next.

This week’s climax of Mike White’s drama might have divided critics, but it was still group chat-dominating, column inch-gobbling TV, notching its highest ratings yet. The show was renewed for a fourth trip before the third had even aired, with White reportedly pitching HBO execs his next idea while still filming in Koh Samui. Buzz is now building about the next chapter, expected on our screens in late 2026.

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‘Woke’ criticism of Doctor Who proves show on right track, says its newest star

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Varada Sethu joining series as Doctor’s latest companion, marking first time Tardis team is wholly people of colour

Criticisms that Doctor Who has become too “woke” prove the series is doing the right thing by being inclusive, its new star Varada Sethu has said.

Sethu plays the Doctor’s latest travelling companion, Belinda Chandra, in new episodes airing next month. With Ncuti Gatwa returning as the Doctor, the pairing marks the first time a Tardis team will comprise solely people of colour.

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Richard Chamberlain, hero of Dr Kildare and ‘king of the miniseries’, dies aged 90

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The actor died on Saturday night in Waimānalo, Hawaii of complications after a stroke, his publicist says

Richard Chamberlain, the hero of the 1960s television series Dr Kildare who found a second career as an award-winning “king of the miniseries,” has died. He was 90.

Chamberlain died on Saturday night in Waimānalo, Hawaii of complications after a stroke, according to his publicist, Harlan Boll.

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The White Lotus ‘goes too far’: Duke University unhappy over their prominence in show

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Two characters in the troubled Ratliff family are Duke alumni, but the association has displeased the US university

  • This article contains spoilers for the third season of The White Lotus

In the aftermath of an incestuous threesome, many viewers of the latest season of The White Lotus may think the show has stepped over a line. But audiences have an unlikely ally in Duke University, which is unhappy that two characters happen to be Duke alumni.

The third season of the popular TV show, which follows wealthy guests and workers at a luxury resort in Thailand, includes the Ratliff family, with the father, Timothy (played by Jason Isaacs) and one of his sons, Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) both having attended Duke, a prestigious institution located in Durham, North Carolina.

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Andy Peebles, former Radio 1 DJ and presenter, dies aged 76

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Host of Top of the Pops and My Top Twelve among other shows was one of last people to interview John Lennon

Andy Peebles, the former Radio 1 DJ and presenter who was one of the last people to interview John Lennon, has died aged 76, his family has confirmed.

Peebles began his radio career in Manchester in 1973 and joined Radio 1 in 1978, where he was a familiar voice for 14 years.

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Black Mirror: first trailer for new season offers more tech nightmares

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Netflix will bring ‘six electrifying stories’ from Charlie Brooker to the small screen in April with stars including Peter Capaldi and Issa Rae

Black Mirror fans rejoice – or prepare to “lose your mind” and “lose your reality”, as promises a newly released trailer for Charlie Brooker’s dystopian sci-fi series. Netflix released the first previews of the new installment on Thursday, teasing “six electrifying stories” premiering on 10 April.

The trailer continues Black Mirror’s trademark uneasy, foreboding tone, previewing several new entries in a universe of tech gone awry. New stars include Peter Capaldi, Issa Rae, Paul Giamatti, Rashida Jones, Tracee Ellis Ross, Emma Corrin, Awkwafina, Chris O’Dowd and more.

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TV nostalgia continues with new gameshow based on musical chairs

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Game of Chairs will have 10 contestants move around a circle who try to land on a seat when the music stops

A new TV show based on the children’s party game musical chairs is set to hit screens, tapping into viewers’ cravings for nostalgia and happy childhood memories.

The company behind Big Brother, Masterchef and Peaky Blinders is launching the elimination gameshow Game of Chairs – a series in which 10 contestants move around a circle of nine coloured chairs and aim to land on a seat when the music stops.

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