Doctor Who actor Matt Smith has revealed that he is keen on filming a third series of the family SF drama. The actor made his full debut as the Time Lord earlier this year and is currently filming a second series of episodes. In an appearance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, he explained: 
'I take it a year at a time. I'm going to do this year, and maybe next year as well. I would like to.' Smith also admitted that he was pleased with the decision to film a forthcoming two-part episode in the US. 'I think it broadens the scale of the show and makes it epic and vast,' he said. '[It's] everything that Utah and Monument Valley is.'
John Barrowman has admitted that he is 'very excited' about filming the new series of Torchwood in America. Torchwood: The New World will see Barrowan reprise his role as Captain Jack Harkness two years after previous series Children of Earth. 'I'm going to be moving to Los Angeles for six months of the year from January,' he told Chris Moyles on Radio 1. 'We're filming in Wales and Los Angeles as it's a co-production now with the BBC and the Starz Network. I'm very excited.'
He added: 'It'll be worked out where we're doing the chunk of filming in the Cardiff area prior to going out and then we'll film our chunk in Los Angeles.' Metro's Neil Sean wrote in Wednesday's The Green Room that 'according to my spies, [Torchwood] finally has the same budget as Doctor Who after the BBC found extra funding.' More likely after the American co-producers found more funding.
The Daily Lies ran an interesting story of Tuesday: 'Flagging breakfast show Daybreak has been saved by David Beckham. The programme pulled in 1.2million viewers on Monday, putting it hot on the heels of its rivals at the BBC. Becks' exclusive interview with sports editor Dan Lobb helped to reverse the show's fortunes.' Only one slight problem with this - it's not true. Factual inaccuracy from the Daily Lies? Who'd've ever thought it? In actual fact, the episode of Daybreak in question got pretty much what the show had been getting for the last two or three weeks, an average audience of about eight hundred thousand and a twenty per cent audience share across its two hours.
Near enough half of what the BBC's Breakfast gets on an average day at the same time. The peak audience of 1.2m that watched Lobb's interview with Becks occurred at 8:00am whilst the opposition's peak audience was topping two million. If you're going to write Daybreak Revival stories, chaps, at least wait until one has actually happened.
Lorraine Kelly, meanwhile, has defended Daybreak hosts Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley and said that the content is to blame for show's rank-poor ratings. Kelly, who continues to host her own show after ITV's GMTV replacement, praised the two presenters for managing the situation. 'They're delightful,' she told Yours magazine. 'Nobody in the building has a bad word to say about them. Honestly.' depends on the building, I'd've said. Try Television Centre, I dare say you might find one or two. 'They're having a hard time. But I admire the way they're dealing with it. Change is tricky.' She continued: 'It all comes down to the content - and once that's right, everything will be fine.' She insisted that viewers should 'hang on in there' with the show. 'The programme is still bedding in,' she said. 'Both TV-am and GMTV had nightmare starts.'
An ITV News special on the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton was watched by 5.9m viewers on Tuesday evening. Hastily scheduled after yesterday's announcement from the couple that another flaming parasite would be joining the - already extensive - civil list, William and Kate - The Royal Engagement was watched by a combined audience of 5.92m on ITV and ITV HD from 7pm. A similar documentary on the Royal Engagement attracted 2.57m to BBC2 between 7.30pm and 8pm.
Best watched of all of the various shows dealing with this 'spectacular event' - which, remember, you and I and every other tax payer in this country will be financing, dear blog reader - an edition of The ONE Show featuring extensive coverage of the announcement achieved an audience of 6.48m on BBC1 from 7pm, up a massive one and a half million viewers on The ONE Show's average audience week-on-week. The audience was the first time The ONE Show had been over six million viewers since 12 March and the highest audience figure for a single episode of the magazine show since 13 January when they got 6.88m (because most of the country was under two foot of snow!) Adrian Chiles' last ONE Show, on 30 April, got 5.18m. The BBC has also, reportedly, received around two hundred complaints from viewers who feel that too much air-time has been given to this story - although these are said to relate to a range of different news programmes, rather than one specific bulletin.
I'm A Z-List Former Celebrity Desperate To Get My Face On TV ... Please Vote For Me To Stay Here As Long As Possible, I'll Even If Worms If You Want! producers have reportedly become suspicious that Gillian McKeith is playing up to the cameras. About two days after everybody else came to the same conclusion. The You Are What You Eat host - and hate figure to everybody that's ever eaten a cream cake and enjoyed it - has so far struggled during her stay on the jungle reality show, most notably when she allegedly 'fainted' as she took part in a bushtucker trial. However, programme 'bosses' are said to have questioned whether McKeith's collapse was authentic after it appeared that she pulled down her T-shirt down to cover her midriff whilst she was supposedly unconscious, according to the Sun. 'There's something not quite right,' a 'source' said. 'She is constantly screeching about bugs but has been sleeping soundly in her jungle bed. She claimed she knew nothing about the show and thought she could stay in a hotel. Anyone in their right mind would have made sure they knew what the deal was before they signed up. There's something fishy here.' That'll be whatever the want her to eat next, probably. McKeith has also apparently started to tell her camp mates that she can hear voices in her head - one voice telling her that she is doing well, and another voice urging her to quit. Err ... that's either a genuine Biblical experience, demonic possession or, more likely, paranoid schizophrenia, Gillian m'love.
Whichever, I'd suggest you get it looked at pretty sharpish. I mean, you are suppose to be a 'doctor' after all. The 'source' added: 'Whether she's making this up too, who knows?' The show's hosts cheeky chappies doon the Bigg Market Wor Ant and Wor Dec and Get Me Out Of Here Now co-presenter Joe Swash have all suggested that McKeith's dramatic reactions may not be entirely genuine.
In Tuesday night's episode, Shaun Ryder ate worms and crocodile penis in the latest bushtucker trial. The Happy Mondays front man beat McKeith and collected five stars for his efforts in the School Dinners challenge. The only problem Ryder faced during the task was chewing through the unusual dishes with his dental veneers. McKeith only ate one dish, a Queasy Cheesy Flan, which she described as 'delicious.' Clearly mentally ill, then. Ryder claimed that the cheese fruit and pastry meal was 'horrible veggie shite' and compared it to 'puke.' Shaun went on to eat a bull's tongue and beach worms, which he likened to dog food, Smelly And Ice Cream, which included meal worms, crocodile eyes and cockroaches, and sponge pudding filled with crocodile penis. Teasing his camp rival, the singer noted: 'You've never eaten a penis? Me, [I have] lots of times!'
He rounded off the challenge by finishing off a fermented and aged duck egg. Rather than encourage Ryder during the challenge, McKeith sniped at the rock star for eating with his mouthful and for his crude gag about the penis. 'Don't speak when you're eating,' she whinged. 'It's disgusting. Chew first, swallow, then speak. I don't want to look at it right now. It will make me vomit.' When McKeith claimed to be allergic to eggs, Ryder quickly joked: 'I'm allergic to crocodile cock.' He's Shaun William Ryder, ladies and gentlemen. He's gonna lie down beside ya and fill ya full of junk!
Louis Walsh has claimed that Cher Lloyd is - allegedly - responsible for 'trouble' in the X Factor house. The judge told Closer magazine that the 'miserable' seventeen-year-old was linked to parties in the house shared by the finalists. 'I've heard rumblings of what is going on in the house,' he said. That'll be Wagner after a curry, probably. 'There's a lot of parties, they're teenagers.' Well, Wagner isn't, for a kick-off. 'But Cher is definitely the out of control one! She causes a lot of trouble.' He added: 'She's as miserable and moody as she looks.' In a separate interview Walsh said that Cher had 'changed' and had 'no likability.' So, not a fan, then?
Simon Cowell is threatening to take Heat magazine to the Press Complaints Commissions over claims that he knew the details of the weekly viewer vote on The X Factor. Cowell has instructed law firm Carter-Ruck to lodge a complaint with the PCC over a story in this week's Heat, headlined 'X Factor Conspiracy Theories: The Truth.' Generally, whenever any newspaper or magazine uses the word 'truth' in a headline, they usually means it's a load of often maliciously mendacious bollocks. Witness the Sun and their coverage of the Hillsborough disaster, just for one notorious example. However, Heat publisher Bauer Media said:'"We have yet to hear from the PCC.' The piece alleged that Cowell knew which contestant received the most votes each week and encouraged viewers to vote a certain way to maximise the profits he makes from the ITV show – a claim The X Factor judge and co-creator hotly denies. Heat quoted a show 'insider' as saying Cowell 'couldn't stand not to know' which acts got the highest percentage of the viewers' vote. However, a 'source' close to Cowell - probably not the same one - denied that this was the case. 'Simon does not know anything about the viewer votes. The show is one hundred per cent fair,' the 'source' allegedly said. 'There are a million and one conspiracy theories about the show but enough is enough. Simon has the utmost respect for the public and he wants them to trust him. He would never do anything like this.' The 'source' added that the only person who knew how the percentages of the public vote, and how the acts had been ranked, was the show's executive producer, Richard Holloway, the head of entertainment at The X Factor's co-producer TalkbackThames. They said the first the judges knew of details of how viewers had voted was when the full voting patterns were made public at the end of the series.
This year's seventh series of The X Factor has proved the most controversial yet, from complaints about the use of Auto-Tune to judge Cheryl Cole's decision not to vote on the 7 November edition of the show, prompting accusations of a 'fix' and nearly one thousand complaints to media regulator Ofcom. Particular attention in the new series has focused on the weekly judges' vote. The four judges – Cowell, Cole, Louis Walsh and Dannii Minogue – vote to save one of the two acts who receive the lowest audience vote. In the event of a 'deadlock', when the judges are split two-two, the act with the fewest viewer votes is eliminated. Katie Waissel has featured in the Sunday night elimination round four times, only to escape on each occasion, including the 7 November show in which Cole refused to vote, resulting in Treyc Cohen's exit.
The creator of The Mentalist has dropped hints about the love triangle on the show. Bruno Heller told TV Guide that Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti) and O'Loughlin (Eric Winter) will begin getting closer. Heller added that Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) will be so hurt by this relationship that he will start sleeping around with a number of women. 'It becomes a distraction that brings a lot of tension into the office,' Heller said. 'He's going to start looking for a way to get out from under that relationship, but it's hard. It's going to be both funny and touching to watch him try.'
Patsy Kensit, Peter Kay and Michael McIntyre are reportedly on a list of potential judges for the next series of Britain's Got Talent. Simon Cowell has arranged to meet up for dinner with current Strictly Come Dancing contestant Kensit with a possible view to her appearing on the talent show, reports the Sun.
Meanwhile, stand-up comedians Kay and McIntyre are said to top the programme makers' wish-list of potential judges. A 'source' said: 'Simon is working hard to finalise the judges. There may be wholesale changes. Michael McIntyre and Peter Kay are also on a list but they'd break the bank.' It was claimed earlier this week that Little Britain comedian David Walliams has been offered half-a-million pounds to appear as a judge on the next series.
The question of whether to renew Gordon Ramsay's exclusive deal with Channel Four will be one of the biggest decisions awaiting Jay Hunt when she joins as chief creative officer on 5 January. Ramsay's four-year contract runs until the middle of 2011 and with disappointing figures for his latest Channel Four series by his own impressive standards and lurid media coverage of his personal life and business dealings, Hunt will have to decide if he still has the ratings golden touch. The unflattering headlines reached a crescendo last week with Ramsay's open letter to his mother-in-law printed in the pages of the Evening Standard, in which he revealed he had paid a private detective to investigate his father-in-law and ousted business manager, Chris Hutcheson. One source close to Channel Four said: 'This issue will be on Hunt's desk as she arrives. There is no question Ramsay is a star. But it appears that, currently, his popularity has collapsed in Britain.' A new travel series is already in the can – Gordon Ramsay's Great Escape, filmed in south-east Asia – following a successful version in India, but does not yet have a transmission date, according to Channel Four. The broadcaster relies on Ramsay to notch up four to five million viewers for his explosive Kitchen Nightmares. But his last series, Gordon Ramsay's Best Restaurant, ended last week averaging just 1.37 million, with at best, consolidated viewing of around 1.8 million. While this is slightly above the October slot average, it is not the kind of performance expected of his projects by the broadcaster. The Channel Four board is understood to have expressed concern about Ramsay's over-reliance on the F-word and asked for his last production to be toned down, arguably making him seem more subdued. And, therefore, less interesting. The commissioning editor he credits with assisting him to fame at Channel Four, head of features Sue Murphy, was also away during the crucial production period; while Kevin Lygo, director of television, and a fan of Ramsay's, was in the process of negotiating his exit to a new job running ITV Studios. One option under debate is whether to rest Ramsay, by taking him off air for a year to refresh interest, and encourage him to concentrate on rebuilding his image as a top chef. He could also choose to focus on his lucrative TV career in America, where Hell's Kitchen and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares are hit programmes on the FOX network, made by ITV Studios. Ramsay also fronts the US version of MasterChef. He is understood to be paid around fifteen million dollars a year for his work in the US. By contrast Ramsay is paid around twenty thousand pounds for each of his hour-long programmes in the UK, according to Channel Four sources. Hunt has a keen interest in cookery and food programmes and was instrumental in moving the popular MasterChef franchise from BBC2 to BBC1 where it has been a major success, but she is expected to revamp the output and bring in new stars at Channel Four.
Ramsay's TV career has been facilitated by Pat Llewellyn, founder of independent producer Optomen Television, which led to the big hit Kitchen Nightmares. His Channel Four shows and the US version of MasterChef are now co-produced through One Potato Two Potato, a company of which he and Llewellyn are co-directors. Optomen and One Potato Two Potato were recently purchased by the the UK's largest independent, All3Media, for forty million pounds. In 2006, at the height of the UK TV talent bidding wars, Channel Four won a three-way contest with ITV and the BBC to keep Ramsay on an exclusive contract. He stayed with Channel Four for a reported eight and a half million pound four-year deal which ends in 2011. After he signed the 2006 deal, Ramsay said: 'Channel Four don't do "here's one I made earlier," or "cook along with Gordon" – it's cutting edge. My relationship with them goes back a long way and Sue Murphy has the most creative brain in television.'
An inventor has claimed that a potential customer wants him to design a Graham Norton sex doll. Scott Maclean, from West Virginia, builds custom-made designs for consumers and has received interest in his products from around the world, the Sun reports. Maclean said: 'We've had a few people from the UK contact us, including a gentleman who claimed he was a duke.
We've got a few people from Europe, Russia, Korea - all over. I've had people ask me to create a robot that looks like Angelina Jolie, Pamela Anderson and Michael Jackson. But I can't model them on people in the public eye without the star's permission. A couple of weeks ago I was in a discussion with a lady to build one that looked like Graham Norton. She sounded serious.' Earlier this year, Douglas Hines from New Jersey unveiled his Roxxxy fem-bot sex-toy. 'Women have always had a physical assistant in the bedside drawer, so what's wrong in having something else in helping their experiences?' he asked. 'Men really haven't had anything to assist them.'
A stand-up comedian made a woman laugh so hard she almost choked to death at a comedy club last week. Fellow audience members were so concerned that they rushed to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on the woman. However, she wasn't choking on her food, as they thought, but laughing so much at American comic Jamie Kaler's routine.
The forty six-year-old, who has appeared on Will & Grace and How I Met Your Mother, had been recording his set at the Funny Bone club in Columbus, Ohio, and put the footage up on YouTube. After confirming that the woman – who was celebrating her fortieth birthday at the club – was all right, Kaler said: 'That's the best compliment I ever had. She's alive, it's going to be okay. If she was dead and I said the compliment line [that would have been bad]. Seriously, I just made someone laugh til they almost fucking died. You guys have to go home and Twitter that "Kaler almost killed a woman."' Kaler, who used to be in the US Navy added: 'I don't want to brag, but I've been approached by the US government as an assassin,' saying he could tell his jokes to kill off the enemy.
A perfume advertisement featuring Beyoncé has been banned by the advertising watchdog during the daytime TV schedule for being unsuitable for young children. The advert, for the Beyoncé Heat fragrance, features the pop singer dancing seductively in a revealing dress, while leaving a trail of fire wherever she touches. However, the ASA has ruled that the advert was too 'sexually provocative' to be aired before 7.30pm, after receiving fourteen complaints from viewers that it was 'offensive' and 'unsuitable for broadcast when children might be watching.' In response, perfume company Coty tried to argue that the advert was merely meant to reflect Beyoncé's 'personal "sexy chic" style.' The firm said that the advert was also aimed at a young adult audience, who would be used to such images in music videos. Clearcast, which approves adverts before screening, said that it had placed a restriction on the advert being shown during or around shows aimed specifically at young children. The ASA rejected the complaints that the perfume advert was offensive, as the film did not include any sexually explicit content or images.
However, it noted that the advert should not have been aired during daytime schedules when young children could have been watching. 'Although we considered that the ad was unlikely to be harmful to adults or older children, we considered that Beyoncé's body movements and the camera's prolonged focus on shots of her dress slipping away to partially expose her breasts created a sexually provocative ad that was unsuitable to be seen by young children,' said the watchdog. 'We considered that the ad should not have been shown before 7.30pm due to the sexually provocative nature of the imagery.'
By process of elimination, therefore, we come to yer Keith Telly Topping's 45 of the Day. Life is full of Temptations, dear blog reader. Here is just one of them. (Or, five of them as it happens.)
And the beat goes on!
'I take it a year at a time. I'm going to do this year, and maybe next year as well. I would like to.' Smith also admitted that he was pleased with the decision to film a forthcoming two-part episode in the US. 'I think it broadens the scale of the show and makes it epic and vast,' he said. '[It's] everything that Utah and Monument Valley is.'John Barrowman has admitted that he is 'very excited' about filming the new series of Torchwood in America. Torchwood: The New World will see Barrowan reprise his role as Captain Jack Harkness two years after previous series Children of Earth. 'I'm going to be moving to Los Angeles for six months of the year from January,' he told Chris Moyles on Radio 1. 'We're filming in Wales and Los Angeles as it's a co-production now with the BBC and the Starz Network. I'm very excited.'
He added: 'It'll be worked out where we're doing the chunk of filming in the Cardiff area prior to going out and then we'll film our chunk in Los Angeles.' Metro's Neil Sean wrote in Wednesday's The Green Room that 'according to my spies, [Torchwood] finally has the same budget as Doctor Who after the BBC found extra funding.' More likely after the American co-producers found more funding.The Daily Lies ran an interesting story of Tuesday: 'Flagging breakfast show Daybreak has been saved by David Beckham. The programme pulled in 1.2million viewers on Monday, putting it hot on the heels of its rivals at the BBC. Becks' exclusive interview with sports editor Dan Lobb helped to reverse the show's fortunes.' Only one slight problem with this - it's not true. Factual inaccuracy from the Daily Lies? Who'd've ever thought it? In actual fact, the episode of Daybreak in question got pretty much what the show had been getting for the last two or three weeks, an average audience of about eight hundred thousand and a twenty per cent audience share across its two hours.
Near enough half of what the BBC's Breakfast gets on an average day at the same time. The peak audience of 1.2m that watched Lobb's interview with Becks occurred at 8:00am whilst the opposition's peak audience was topping two million. If you're going to write Daybreak Revival stories, chaps, at least wait until one has actually happened.Lorraine Kelly, meanwhile, has defended Daybreak hosts Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley and said that the content is to blame for show's rank-poor ratings. Kelly, who continues to host her own show after ITV's GMTV replacement, praised the two presenters for managing the situation. 'They're delightful,' she told Yours magazine. 'Nobody in the building has a bad word to say about them. Honestly.' depends on the building, I'd've said. Try Television Centre, I dare say you might find one or two. 'They're having a hard time. But I admire the way they're dealing with it. Change is tricky.' She continued: 'It all comes down to the content - and once that's right, everything will be fine.' She insisted that viewers should 'hang on in there' with the show. 'The programme is still bedding in,' she said. 'Both TV-am and GMTV had nightmare starts.'
An ITV News special on the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton was watched by 5.9m viewers on Tuesday evening. Hastily scheduled after yesterday's announcement from the couple that another flaming parasite would be joining the - already extensive - civil list, William and Kate - The Royal Engagement was watched by a combined audience of 5.92m on ITV and ITV HD from 7pm. A similar documentary on the Royal Engagement attracted 2.57m to BBC2 between 7.30pm and 8pm.
Best watched of all of the various shows dealing with this 'spectacular event' - which, remember, you and I and every other tax payer in this country will be financing, dear blog reader - an edition of The ONE Show featuring extensive coverage of the announcement achieved an audience of 6.48m on BBC1 from 7pm, up a massive one and a half million viewers on The ONE Show's average audience week-on-week. The audience was the first time The ONE Show had been over six million viewers since 12 March and the highest audience figure for a single episode of the magazine show since 13 January when they got 6.88m (because most of the country was under two foot of snow!) Adrian Chiles' last ONE Show, on 30 April, got 5.18m. The BBC has also, reportedly, received around two hundred complaints from viewers who feel that too much air-time has been given to this story - although these are said to relate to a range of different news programmes, rather than one specific bulletin.I'm A Z-List Former Celebrity Desperate To Get My Face On TV ... Please Vote For Me To Stay Here As Long As Possible, I'll Even If Worms If You Want! producers have reportedly become suspicious that Gillian McKeith is playing up to the cameras. About two days after everybody else came to the same conclusion. The You Are What You Eat host - and hate figure to everybody that's ever eaten a cream cake and enjoyed it - has so far struggled during her stay on the jungle reality show, most notably when she allegedly 'fainted' as she took part in a bushtucker trial. However, programme 'bosses' are said to have questioned whether McKeith's collapse was authentic after it appeared that she pulled down her T-shirt down to cover her midriff whilst she was supposedly unconscious, according to the Sun. 'There's something not quite right,' a 'source' said. 'She is constantly screeching about bugs but has been sleeping soundly in her jungle bed. She claimed she knew nothing about the show and thought she could stay in a hotel. Anyone in their right mind would have made sure they knew what the deal was before they signed up. There's something fishy here.' That'll be whatever the want her to eat next, probably. McKeith has also apparently started to tell her camp mates that she can hear voices in her head - one voice telling her that she is doing well, and another voice urging her to quit. Err ... that's either a genuine Biblical experience, demonic possession or, more likely, paranoid schizophrenia, Gillian m'love.
Whichever, I'd suggest you get it looked at pretty sharpish. I mean, you are suppose to be a 'doctor' after all. The 'source' added: 'Whether she's making this up too, who knows?' The show's hosts cheeky chappies doon the Bigg Market Wor Ant and Wor Dec and Get Me Out Of Here Now co-presenter Joe Swash have all suggested that McKeith's dramatic reactions may not be entirely genuine.In Tuesday night's episode, Shaun Ryder ate worms and crocodile penis in the latest bushtucker trial. The Happy Mondays front man beat McKeith and collected five stars for his efforts in the School Dinners challenge. The only problem Ryder faced during the task was chewing through the unusual dishes with his dental veneers. McKeith only ate one dish, a Queasy Cheesy Flan, which she described as 'delicious.' Clearly mentally ill, then. Ryder claimed that the cheese fruit and pastry meal was 'horrible veggie shite' and compared it to 'puke.' Shaun went on to eat a bull's tongue and beach worms, which he likened to dog food, Smelly And Ice Cream, which included meal worms, crocodile eyes and cockroaches, and sponge pudding filled with crocodile penis. Teasing his camp rival, the singer noted: 'You've never eaten a penis? Me, [I have] lots of times!'
He rounded off the challenge by finishing off a fermented and aged duck egg. Rather than encourage Ryder during the challenge, McKeith sniped at the rock star for eating with his mouthful and for his crude gag about the penis. 'Don't speak when you're eating,' she whinged. 'It's disgusting. Chew first, swallow, then speak. I don't want to look at it right now. It will make me vomit.' When McKeith claimed to be allergic to eggs, Ryder quickly joked: 'I'm allergic to crocodile cock.' He's Shaun William Ryder, ladies and gentlemen. He's gonna lie down beside ya and fill ya full of junk!Louis Walsh has claimed that Cher Lloyd is - allegedly - responsible for 'trouble' in the X Factor house. The judge told Closer magazine that the 'miserable' seventeen-year-old was linked to parties in the house shared by the finalists. 'I've heard rumblings of what is going on in the house,' he said. That'll be Wagner after a curry, probably. 'There's a lot of parties, they're teenagers.' Well, Wagner isn't, for a kick-off. 'But Cher is definitely the out of control one! She causes a lot of trouble.' He added: 'She's as miserable and moody as she looks.' In a separate interview Walsh said that Cher had 'changed' and had 'no likability.' So, not a fan, then?
Simon Cowell is threatening to take Heat magazine to the Press Complaints Commissions over claims that he knew the details of the weekly viewer vote on The X Factor. Cowell has instructed law firm Carter-Ruck to lodge a complaint with the PCC over a story in this week's Heat, headlined 'X Factor Conspiracy Theories: The Truth.' Generally, whenever any newspaper or magazine uses the word 'truth' in a headline, they usually means it's a load of often maliciously mendacious bollocks. Witness the Sun and their coverage of the Hillsborough disaster, just for one notorious example. However, Heat publisher Bauer Media said:'"We have yet to hear from the PCC.' The piece alleged that Cowell knew which contestant received the most votes each week and encouraged viewers to vote a certain way to maximise the profits he makes from the ITV show – a claim The X Factor judge and co-creator hotly denies. Heat quoted a show 'insider' as saying Cowell 'couldn't stand not to know' which acts got the highest percentage of the viewers' vote. However, a 'source' close to Cowell - probably not the same one - denied that this was the case. 'Simon does not know anything about the viewer votes. The show is one hundred per cent fair,' the 'source' allegedly said. 'There are a million and one conspiracy theories about the show but enough is enough. Simon has the utmost respect for the public and he wants them to trust him. He would never do anything like this.' The 'source' added that the only person who knew how the percentages of the public vote, and how the acts had been ranked, was the show's executive producer, Richard Holloway, the head of entertainment at The X Factor's co-producer TalkbackThames. They said the first the judges knew of details of how viewers had voted was when the full voting patterns were made public at the end of the series.
This year's seventh series of The X Factor has proved the most controversial yet, from complaints about the use of Auto-Tune to judge Cheryl Cole's decision not to vote on the 7 November edition of the show, prompting accusations of a 'fix' and nearly one thousand complaints to media regulator Ofcom. Particular attention in the new series has focused on the weekly judges' vote. The four judges – Cowell, Cole, Louis Walsh and Dannii Minogue – vote to save one of the two acts who receive the lowest audience vote. In the event of a 'deadlock', when the judges are split two-two, the act with the fewest viewer votes is eliminated. Katie Waissel has featured in the Sunday night elimination round four times, only to escape on each occasion, including the 7 November show in which Cole refused to vote, resulting in Treyc Cohen's exit.The creator of The Mentalist has dropped hints about the love triangle on the show. Bruno Heller told TV Guide that Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti) and O'Loughlin (Eric Winter) will begin getting closer. Heller added that Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) will be so hurt by this relationship that he will start sleeping around with a number of women. 'It becomes a distraction that brings a lot of tension into the office,' Heller said. 'He's going to start looking for a way to get out from under that relationship, but it's hard. It's going to be both funny and touching to watch him try.'
Patsy Kensit, Peter Kay and Michael McIntyre are reportedly on a list of potential judges for the next series of Britain's Got Talent. Simon Cowell has arranged to meet up for dinner with current Strictly Come Dancing contestant Kensit with a possible view to her appearing on the talent show, reports the Sun.
Meanwhile, stand-up comedians Kay and McIntyre are said to top the programme makers' wish-list of potential judges. A 'source' said: 'Simon is working hard to finalise the judges. There may be wholesale changes. Michael McIntyre and Peter Kay are also on a list but they'd break the bank.' It was claimed earlier this week that Little Britain comedian David Walliams has been offered half-a-million pounds to appear as a judge on the next series.The question of whether to renew Gordon Ramsay's exclusive deal with Channel Four will be one of the biggest decisions awaiting Jay Hunt when she joins as chief creative officer on 5 January. Ramsay's four-year contract runs until the middle of 2011 and with disappointing figures for his latest Channel Four series by his own impressive standards and lurid media coverage of his personal life and business dealings, Hunt will have to decide if he still has the ratings golden touch. The unflattering headlines reached a crescendo last week with Ramsay's open letter to his mother-in-law printed in the pages of the Evening Standard, in which he revealed he had paid a private detective to investigate his father-in-law and ousted business manager, Chris Hutcheson. One source close to Channel Four said: 'This issue will be on Hunt's desk as she arrives. There is no question Ramsay is a star. But it appears that, currently, his popularity has collapsed in Britain.' A new travel series is already in the can – Gordon Ramsay's Great Escape, filmed in south-east Asia – following a successful version in India, but does not yet have a transmission date, according to Channel Four. The broadcaster relies on Ramsay to notch up four to five million viewers for his explosive Kitchen Nightmares. But his last series, Gordon Ramsay's Best Restaurant, ended last week averaging just 1.37 million, with at best, consolidated viewing of around 1.8 million. While this is slightly above the October slot average, it is not the kind of performance expected of his projects by the broadcaster. The Channel Four board is understood to have expressed concern about Ramsay's over-reliance on the F-word and asked for his last production to be toned down, arguably making him seem more subdued. And, therefore, less interesting. The commissioning editor he credits with assisting him to fame at Channel Four, head of features Sue Murphy, was also away during the crucial production period; while Kevin Lygo, director of television, and a fan of Ramsay's, was in the process of negotiating his exit to a new job running ITV Studios. One option under debate is whether to rest Ramsay, by taking him off air for a year to refresh interest, and encourage him to concentrate on rebuilding his image as a top chef. He could also choose to focus on his lucrative TV career in America, where Hell's Kitchen and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares are hit programmes on the FOX network, made by ITV Studios. Ramsay also fronts the US version of MasterChef. He is understood to be paid around fifteen million dollars a year for his work in the US. By contrast Ramsay is paid around twenty thousand pounds for each of his hour-long programmes in the UK, according to Channel Four sources. Hunt has a keen interest in cookery and food programmes and was instrumental in moving the popular MasterChef franchise from BBC2 to BBC1 where it has been a major success, but she is expected to revamp the output and bring in new stars at Channel Four.
Ramsay's TV career has been facilitated by Pat Llewellyn, founder of independent producer Optomen Television, which led to the big hit Kitchen Nightmares. His Channel Four shows and the US version of MasterChef are now co-produced through One Potato Two Potato, a company of which he and Llewellyn are co-directors. Optomen and One Potato Two Potato were recently purchased by the the UK's largest independent, All3Media, for forty million pounds. In 2006, at the height of the UK TV talent bidding wars, Channel Four won a three-way contest with ITV and the BBC to keep Ramsay on an exclusive contract. He stayed with Channel Four for a reported eight and a half million pound four-year deal which ends in 2011. After he signed the 2006 deal, Ramsay said: 'Channel Four don't do "here's one I made earlier," or "cook along with Gordon" – it's cutting edge. My relationship with them goes back a long way and Sue Murphy has the most creative brain in television.'An inventor has claimed that a potential customer wants him to design a Graham Norton sex doll. Scott Maclean, from West Virginia, builds custom-made designs for consumers and has received interest in his products from around the world, the Sun reports. Maclean said: 'We've had a few people from the UK contact us, including a gentleman who claimed he was a duke.
We've got a few people from Europe, Russia, Korea - all over. I've had people ask me to create a robot that looks like Angelina Jolie, Pamela Anderson and Michael Jackson. But I can't model them on people in the public eye without the star's permission. A couple of weeks ago I was in a discussion with a lady to build one that looked like Graham Norton. She sounded serious.' Earlier this year, Douglas Hines from New Jersey unveiled his Roxxxy fem-bot sex-toy. 'Women have always had a physical assistant in the bedside drawer, so what's wrong in having something else in helping their experiences?' he asked. 'Men really haven't had anything to assist them.'A stand-up comedian made a woman laugh so hard she almost choked to death at a comedy club last week. Fellow audience members were so concerned that they rushed to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on the woman. However, she wasn't choking on her food, as they thought, but laughing so much at American comic Jamie Kaler's routine.
The forty six-year-old, who has appeared on Will & Grace and How I Met Your Mother, had been recording his set at the Funny Bone club in Columbus, Ohio, and put the footage up on YouTube. After confirming that the woman – who was celebrating her fortieth birthday at the club – was all right, Kaler said: 'That's the best compliment I ever had. She's alive, it's going to be okay. If she was dead and I said the compliment line [that would have been bad]. Seriously, I just made someone laugh til they almost fucking died. You guys have to go home and Twitter that "Kaler almost killed a woman."' Kaler, who used to be in the US Navy added: 'I don't want to brag, but I've been approached by the US government as an assassin,' saying he could tell his jokes to kill off the enemy.A perfume advertisement featuring Beyoncé has been banned by the advertising watchdog during the daytime TV schedule for being unsuitable for young children. The advert, for the Beyoncé Heat fragrance, features the pop singer dancing seductively in a revealing dress, while leaving a trail of fire wherever she touches. However, the ASA has ruled that the advert was too 'sexually provocative' to be aired before 7.30pm, after receiving fourteen complaints from viewers that it was 'offensive' and 'unsuitable for broadcast when children might be watching.' In response, perfume company Coty tried to argue that the advert was merely meant to reflect Beyoncé's 'personal "sexy chic" style.' The firm said that the advert was also aimed at a young adult audience, who would be used to such images in music videos. Clearcast, which approves adverts before screening, said that it had placed a restriction on the advert being shown during or around shows aimed specifically at young children. The ASA rejected the complaints that the perfume advert was offensive, as the film did not include any sexually explicit content or images.
However, it noted that the advert should not have been aired during daytime schedules when young children could have been watching. 'Although we considered that the ad was unlikely to be harmful to adults or older children, we considered that Beyoncé's body movements and the camera's prolonged focus on shots of her dress slipping away to partially expose her breasts created a sexually provocative ad that was unsuitable to be seen by young children,' said the watchdog. 'We considered that the ad should not have been shown before 7.30pm due to the sexually provocative nature of the imagery.'By process of elimination, therefore, we come to yer Keith Telly Topping's 45 of the Day. Life is full of Temptations, dear blog reader. Here is just one of them. (Or, five of them as it happens.)
And the beat goes on!
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