Category Archives: Television industry

Netflix with ads draws some big brands – but others are unimpressed

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L’Oréal and Budweiser owner advertise on Basic with Ads but high prices for slots put off some agencies

Netflix has launched its first subscription package featuring ads in a drive to reignite growth by attracting cost-conscious users, but the hurried launch, high prices for slots and accompanying demands have left some advertisers unconvinced.

Basic with Ads, which went live in 12 countries this week, costs £4.99 a month in the UK – £2 less than its cheapest ad-free package – and hopes to lure households whose budgets are shrinking in the cost of living crisis.

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HBO Max series ¡García! brings fictional Francoist spy to small screen

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Show portrays adventures of agent who wakes from cryogenic sleep to find himself in modern Spain

Three years after the remains of Francisco Franco were finally removed from the granite chambers of the Valley of the Fallen, another relic of the dictatorial regime is stirring from a long slumber deep inside the monument’s damp and bone-stacked caverns.

Fortunately, the relic in question is not a long-dead falangista but rather a fictional Francoist secret agent whose adventures in contemporary Spain have moved from the pages of three graphic novels to the small screen.

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Newsmax bans Lara Logan after QAnon-tinged on-air tirade

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Rightwing networks says war correspondent turned pundit will not be invited back in view of ‘reprehensible statements’

The rightwing US TV network Newsmax said it had no plans to interview Lara Logan again, after the award-winning war correspondent turned rightwing pundit launched a QAnon-tinged tirade on air.

Speaking to host Eric Bolling, Logan said “the open border is Satan’s way of taking control of the world” and claimed world leaders drank children’s blood.

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Netflix reverses subscriber decline with help from Stranger Things and Dahmer

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Streaming service adds 2.4m subscribers in past three months to comfortably beat forecasts after ‘challenging’ first half of year

Netflix added 2.4m new subscribers in the last three months, more than twice what had been expected and reversing back-to-back quarters of decline, the company announced on Tuesday.

The streaming company had been expected to add 1m new subscribers over the latest quarter, which included the release of hit shows including the latest series of Stranger Things, Sandman and Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.

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ABC calls for mandate to ensure it hosts federal election debate

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Bid follows national broadcaster being turned down last election by Scott Morrison to appear in leaders’ debate despite its broad reach

The ABC has called for legislation to ensure it hosts and broadcasts at least one leaders’ debate during a federal election campaign.

The public broadcaster made the case for a mandated ABC election debate in a submission to the inquiry into the 2022 federal election, which continues its public hearings in Canberra on Tuesday.

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Qatar World Cup imposes ‘chilling’ restrictions on media

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Rules ban BBC, ITV and other broadcasters from filming near government buildings and migrant workers’ accommodation

International television crews in Qatar for the Fifa World Cup will be banned from interviewing people in their own homes as part of sweeping reporting restrictions that could have a “severe chilling effect” on media coverage.

Broadcasters, such as the BBC and ITV, will also be forbidden from filming at accommodation sites, like those housing migrant workers, under the terms of filming permits issued by the Qatari government.

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Channel 4 buys painting by Hitler – and may let Jimmy Carr destroy it

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Ian Katz says new show, Art Trouble, celebrates the channel’s tradition of ‘iconoclasm and irreverence’

Channel 4 has bought a painting by Adolf Hitler and will allow a studio audience to decide whether Jimmy Carr should burn it with a flamethrower.

As part of its latest season of programmes, the TV channel has bought artworks by a range of “problematic” artists, including Pablo Picasso, as well as convicted paedophile Rolf Harris and sexual abuser Eric Gill.

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CNN ‘deeply regrets’ distress caused by report on Thailand nursery killings

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News broadcaster’s footage of building’s blood-stained floor sparked police investigation

CNN has said it deeply regrets any distress caused by its report on the nursery killings in north-east Thailand, after its footage of the building’s blood-stained floor sparked a police investigation and a debate over how the media should cover such tragedies.

The US network’s report, which has since been pulled, was condemned by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand and the Thai Journalists Association, while police launched an inquiry over allegations the crew entered the crime scene without authorisation.

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James Dyson sues Channel 4 for libel over news report

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Report suggested Dyson was complicit in abuse and exploitation at Malaysia factory, claim inventor’s lawyers

The billionaire businessman James Dyson is attempting to sue Channel 4 over a news report about claims of abuse and exploitation in the Malaysia factory of a former supplier to his firm.

The lead story on Channel 4 News on 10 February suggested Dyson, second on this year’s Sunday Times UK rich list, was complicit in the practices at the ATA-owned factory, the inventor’s lawyer told the high court in London on Thursday.

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Queen’s funeral may break TV records – but it’s no cash bonanza for media industry

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A total blackout on TV advertising was agreed with Buckingham Palace following the death of the Queen

• Death of the Queen and King Charles’s accession – latest updates

The death of the Queen and coverage of her funeral will top the ranks of the most-watched broadcasts in British television history, while newspaper publishers have seen an unprecedented boost in sales as mourners seek commemorative copies. And yet the biggest national event in decades will not provide a commercial bonanza for media firms.

ITV has planned its largest-ever outside broadcast, with all of its channels simulcasting ad-free blanket live coverage for the first time in history. The day of the funeral will also be the first time in Channel 4’s four decades on air that it has instituted a 24-hour ad block across its channels.

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Bernard Shaw, CNN’s first chief anchor, dies of pneumonia aged 82

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Trailblazing Black news anchor chronicled iconic moments in history from Tiananmen Square to the first Gulf war

The pioneering Black cable news anchor Bernard Shaw, who became a household name in the US with the launch of CNN, has died at the age of 82 after a bout with pneumonia unrelated to Covid-19, his family said Thursday.

When CNN debuted in 1980, Shaw served as the 24/7 news channel’s first chief anchor, and spent more than 20 years there before his retirement in February 2001. He reported on some of the biggest news stories from that era, including China’s deadly quelling of the Tiananmen Square student revolt in 1989, the first Gulf war in 1991 for which he went to Baghdad to report, and the 2000 presidential election, won by George W Bush following a controversial US supreme court ruling.

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BBC One announces Queen’s death and plays national anthem

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Broadcaster had earlier cut short Bargain Hunt with Buckingham Palace statement and switched to special coverage

News of the Queen’s death was announced by Huw Edwards at 6.30pm on BBC One, breaking into programming on the BBC’s other channels. The broadcaster then played the national anthem, in line with a well-rehearsed plan that has been practised regularly in recent years.

Earlier, the BBC’s main channel had interrupted Bargain Hunt just after 12.30pm to deliver a statement from Buckingham Palace that said doctors were concerned for her health, and it continued with a BBC News special.

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Oklahoma TV news anchor has partial stroke on live broadcast

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Julie Chin, who works for NBC in Tulsa, did not finish broadcast and was taken to hospital, but says she should be ‘just fine’

An Oklahoma TV news anchor suffered a stroke live on air as she read the news about the cancellation of a Nasa rocket launch.

Julie Chin, who works for an NBC station in Tulsa, started to stumble over her words as she read from a teleprompter over the weekend.

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Tracy Grimshaw to depart A Current Affair after 17 years as host

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Grimshaw says decision is hers alone and she’s ‘not being shoved out the door by the boys club because I’m too old’

After 17 years in a prime time spot and 40 years on television, Tracy Grimshaw will step down from hosting Nine’s A Current Affair in November.

Grimshaw broke the news live on the program, telling viewers it was her decision to quit and to ignore the gossip magazines if they “start telling you rubbish”.

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Emily Maitlis says ‘active Tory party agent’ shaping BBC news output

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Former Newsnight presenter says former No 10 communications chief Sir Robbie Gibb on board acting as ‘arbiter of impartiality’

Emily Maitlis has said a BBC board member is an “active agent of the Conservative party” who is shaping the broadcaster’s news output by acting “as the arbiter of BBC impartiality”.

The former Newsnight presenter highlighted the role of Sir Robbie Gibb, who previously worked as Theresa May’s director of communications and helped to found the rightwing GB News channel.

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Former Fox News politics editor says network stoked ‘paranoia and hatred’

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Chris Stirewalter, who was forced out after Donald Trump’s electoral defeat, says Fox failed its viewers with 2020 election coverage

A former Fox News politics editor who was forced out of the conservative television network shortly after its opinions hosts’ preferred candidate Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential race has said that the channel failed its viewers with its election coverage.

In his upcoming memoir, Chris Stirewalt says Fox News resigned its duty to prepare Trump followers for the possibility that he would lose, instead stoking the “black-helicopter-level paranoia and hatred” which fuels white supremacist groups but translates into big ratings.

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Brian Stelter rebukes CNN on final show: ‘It’s not partisan to stand up to demagogues’

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Host says, ‘It is not partisan to stand up for decency and democracy and dialogue,’ after CNN cancels media show Reliable Sources

Brian Stelter, host of CNN’s media affairs show Reliable Sources which was cancelled last week after 30 years on air, used his final episode Sunday to make a pointed rebuke of the network’s new bosses and their intention to pursue a more “neutral voice” to its coverage.

“It is not partisan to stand up for decency and democracy and dialogue,” Stelter said in his final monologue, which he stressed was unvetted by CNN management before he delivered it live. “It is not partisan to stand up to demagogues – it’s required, it’s patriotic.”

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BBC staff to publish damning report on planned merger of news channels

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Exclusive: internal concerns raised over effect of proposals as broadcaster seeks to make £500m in savings

The BBC’s plan to merge its two rolling news channels could suffer a setback this week when staff publish a damning report that claims the move will have a negative effect on news coverage across BBC radio, TV and online.

The corporation is also braced for the regulator, Ofcom, to make a key announcement about the proposal, while some charities have already aired their concerns.

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CMA investigates sport broadcasters over ‘cartel-like behaviour’

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Watchdog says it suspects possible breaches of competition law around purchase of freelance services

The competition watchdog is investigating possible cartel-like behaviour by sport broadcasters including BT Group, ITV, Sky and IMG Media, which includes Premier League Productions, around the purchase of freelance services.

The Competition and Markets Authority said it believes there are “reasonable grounds to suspect one or more breaches of competition law”.

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Channel 4 privatisation plan could be dropped by next prime minister

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Tory MPs are ambivalent on the issue and there is uncertainty over what a caretaker government can do

Channel 4’s privatisation could be dropped by the next prime minister, with plans to sell the channel unlikely to be published before September.

Boris Johnson had already signed off on proposals to sell the publicly owned broadcaster, and the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, had been preparing to push the law authorising the change through parliament in the autumn.

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