The broadcaster left Radio 4’s Saturday Live in March after 12 years
The Rev Richard Coles has said he “felt rather hurtled towards the exit” after leaving the BBC this year.
The broadcaster, 61, stepped down from his Radio 4 programme Saturday Live in March after 12 years.
Continue reading...Former Newsnight presenter, 73, will end stint as longest serving current quizmaster on British television
Jeremy Paxman’s stint as the longest serving current quizmaster on British television will come to an end on Monday night when he presents his final edition of University Challenge.
The 73-year-old former Newsnight presenter is bowing out from the show after revealing he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
Continue reading...Doctor also says he was ‘managed out’ of the show after raising concerns over how people were being treated
A TV doctor who previously worked on ITV’s This Morning has said the culture on the show became “toxic” and that he was “managed out” after he tried to raise his concerns.
Dr Ranj Singh, who made regular appearances offering medical advice, said that, over 10 years on the show, he grew “increasingly worried about how things were behind-the-scenes and how people, including myself, were being treated”.
Continue reading...This Morning co-presenter wrote that subsequent admission of relationship he denied was ‘very hurtful’
Holly Willoughby has claimed that former co-host Phillip Schofield had previously denied to her that he had a relationship with a younger ITV colleague and described his subsequent admission of the affair as “very hurtful”.
In a statement on Instagram, the This Morning presenter, 42, said: “It’s taken time to process yesterday’s news. When reports of this relationship first surfaced, I asked Phil directly if this was true and was told it was not. It’s been very hurtful to now find out that this was a lie.”
Continue reading...Presenter parts from agents and says he lied about affair with younger employee while he was married
Phillip Schofield has sensationally quit ITV and admitted to an affair with a younger male colleague at This Morning while he was still married.
The 61-year-old – who stepped down from presenting the daytime TV programme last Saturday – said the “consensual on-off relationship” was “unwise, but not illegal”.
Continue reading...Streaming company tells millions of British subscribers that the service can no longer be used free by other households
Netflix has begun its crackdown on the millions of UK subscribers who share their passwords with friends and family who live outside of their household.
The streaming company has sent a letter to almost four million British subscribers that it has identified as giving friends and family members outside their home free access.
Continue reading...He had personal audiences with Queen Elizabeth II and held national treasure status – until the world discovered the awful truth
When Rolf Harris died at 93, he ended his life as a convicted paedophile. Since his release from prison in 2017, after serving almost three years, he had lived as a virtual recluse with his wife of 64 years, Alwen Hughes. He had neck cancer, and the only visitors to their house in Bray, Berkshire were carers and nurses.
It was a long way from his days as a national treasure. Once, the artist, musician and entertainer had spent much of his time visiting Buckingham Palace to collect a series of honours. He made two appearances on the UK version of This Is Your Life and performed his music at high-profile gigs across the country. His paintings, which once fetched six-figure sums, can now be picked up for a fraction of their former value.
Continue reading...Australian-born artist and musician was jailed for sexual assaults on children after a 50-year career as one of Britain’s best-known TV performers
The entertainer Rolf Harris, whose career as one of the best-loved performers on British TV ended in the disgrace of convictions for indecent assault on teenage girls, has died aged 93.
In October 2022, it was reported that Harris had neck cancer and was barely able to speak. His death was confirmed by a registrar at Maidenhead town hall, close to his family home in the Berkshire village of Bray.
Continue reading...Acclaimed actor in European art cinema also secured a prominent role in US soap opera Dynasty
Austrian actor Helmut Berger, who became a star of 60s and 70s art cinema with roles in films such as Luchino Visconti’s The Damned, and Ludwig and Joseph Losey’s The Romantic Englishwoman, has died aged 78. His death was announced by his management agency, which posted a statement on its website saying Berger had “passed away peacefully but unexpectedly” in Salzburg, the city where he grew up.
Born Helmut Steinberger in the Austrian spa town of Bad Ischl in 1944, Berger studied acting in London before moving to Italy, where he met and began a relationship with acclaimed director Luchino Visconti, nearly 40 years his senior. Visconti gave him his first acting role, a small part in the comic anthology The Witches, and subsequently cast him in a spectacular role in his landmark 1969 epic The Damned. Berger played Martin von Essenbeck, a scion of a wealthy industrial family who struggle for control over the business in interwar Germany as the Nazis rise to power; for the film, Berger famously performed in drag as Marlene Dietrich and was subsequently nominated for a Golden Globe for most promising male newcomer.
Continue reading...BBC claims online listening increase offsets live decline, while Rajar figures show Greatest Hits and LBC gaining audience
Radio 4’s Today Programme has lost 800,000 listeners in the past year as they switched to podcasts and rival talk radio shows.
The agenda-setting breakfast discussion programme has been trying to reinvent itself in recent months, adopting a more informal tone for parts of the show. It has also had to deal with Rishi Sunak’s government cutting access to government ministers as part of a deliberate communication strategy.
Continue reading...Footballer’s wife tells how she was ‘shamed’ and ‘blamed’ as she recalls the trauma of her early years for TV documentary
Rebekah Vardy has said she was sexually abused while growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness, an ordeal her former community failed to protect her from.
Vardy, 41, opened up about her upbringing in a Channel 4 documentary titled Rebekah Vardy: Jehovah’s Witnesses and Me, which will air on 16 May.
Continue reading...During a five-minute peak in the UK, 11m people were watching, while the average viewing figure was 9.9m
Saturday night’s Eurovision song contest in Liverpool was the most watched grand final in the competition’s history, the BBC has said.
In the UK, there was a five-minute peak of 11 million people watching and an average viewing figure of 9.9 million, which equates to a 63% TV audience share.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Culture minister says he was puzzled about reasoning for not allowing president to address song contest
Ukraine’s culture minister has said he was “surprised” and “confused” that Volodymyr Zelenskiy was barred from making a televised speech during the Eurovision grand final.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the owner of Eurovision, said last week that allowing the Ukrainian president to address the contest, which is watched around the world, risked jeopardising its “non-political nature”.
Continue reading...The actor, now recovered, tells BBC’s Desert Island Discs he became ‘very sneaky’ about his drinking in the early 2000s
Simon Pegg faced his own mission impossible, tackling both his addiction and eventual recovery, while working on the major Hollywood film franchise alongside Tom Cruise, he will explain in a revealing radio interview on Sunday morning.
Speaking of a secret reliance upon alcohol that he hid while working on film sets in the early 2000s, Pegg admits: “You become very sneaky when you have something like that in your life.”
Continue reading...Loreen becomes only second person to win contest twice as Sweden claims seventh victory overall
The scandal though is that Georgia were robbed of a place in the final. Robbed, I tell you. A dramatic gothic ballad type affair with lots of creepy hands in the background on the screen reaching out for Iru, the song Echo would have been a great addition to tonight’s show. Don’t blame me, I voted for it.
This tweet summed it up really.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Host expresses gratitude to national broadcaster and reflects on delivering a ‘fun, warm and intelligent’ run
High-profile ABC host Fran Kelly says she has no regrets, despite her Friday night talkshow Frankly not being commissioned for a second season.
Kelly told Guardian Australia she was grateful the national broadcaster gave her the opportunity to try something different and she understood there were competing interests to juggle.
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Continue reading...European Broadcasting Union, which oversees song contest, says appearance by Ukrainian president could politicise the event
The owners of the Eurovision song contest have turned down a request from Volodymyr Zelenskiy to make a video appearance during the final on Saturday in Liverpool.
The Ukrainian president had hoped to appeal to the global audience of about 160 million people to continue their support for his country in the war with Russia.
Continue reading...DCI Banks lead actor was accused of punching drunk man making noise outside his house
The actor Stephen Tompkinson has been found not guilty of inflicting grievous bodily harm by punching a drunk man who was making noise outside his house.
The DCI Banks lead actor had been accused of inflicting grievous bodily harm on Karl Poole on 30 May 2021.
Continue reading...Cybersecurity experts drafted in to help thwart any sabotage attempt as UK stands in as host for Ukraine
The risk of a cyber-attack by pro-Russian hackers is the “main worry” for broadcasters staging the Eurovision song contest on behalf of war-torn Ukraine, a BBC executive has said.
Experts from the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre have been drafted in to help thwart any attempts to sabotage the competition’s public vote on Saturday.
Continue reading...After being accused of being ‘obsequious’ over Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, ABC included discussion of colonialism and monarchy’s relevance
The ABC’s broadcast of King Charles’ coronation was labelled “despicable” by monarchists, but viewers loved it and gave the national broadcaster an easy ratings win over the commercial networks.
The king’s procession averaged 1,182,000 viewers on the ABC, putting it ahead of Seven’s 1,096,000 and Nine’s 738,000, according to OzTAM which now measures viewing through broadcast TV and streaming devices.
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