As announced yesterday, David Tennant is to host a new (and, frankly, wretchedly unoriginal sounding) Channel Four comedy panel show. The former Doctor Who actor will present Comedy World Cup, the channel's controller Jay Hunt announced at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. 
The seven-part series will follow teams of comedians as they use their stand-up routines to avoid being ejected from the competition. Tennant's other forthcoming projects include ITV crime drama Broadchurch and BBC2's political mini-series The Politician's Husband. The Scottish actor is also rumoured - mainly by The Usual Suspects, it should be noted - to be making a return to Doctor Who for the show's fiftieth anniversary in 2013. 'I'm sure there are lots of plans being discussed,' he said earlier this month in relation to this. 'I am not confirming nor denying anything.'
One for all From The North readers down under now. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has confirmed via Twitter that Asylum of the Daleks will have its Australian premiere on ABC1 on Saturday 8 September at 7.30pm. It will also be repeated on ABC2 on Tuesdays at 9.30pm starting from 11 September. As previously reported, Asylum of the Daleks will debut in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States on 1 September.
Doctor Who showrunner The Lord Thy God Steven Moffat (Thou Shalt Worship No Other Gods Before He) has said that 1980s Doctor Who villainess The Rani is 'unlikely' to return to the series. To the surprise of no one. Tragically, he didn't go on to confirm that The Borad, The Creature from The Pit and The Dominators are, also, not coming back any time soon but, we'll take that as read. Kate O'Mara played the evil Time Lady in two serials in the mid-1980s and later revived the role for the 1993 Children in Need special Dimensions in Time. None of them were much cop, just in case you missed them. A return for the character has occasionally been rumours in Doctor Who fan circles, albeit not by anyone that actually matters, and the Sun even lied five years ago that Zöe Lucker had been cast in the role. That turned out, as most things which appear in the Sun, to be a load of old shite. But Moffat has now told SFX magazine that he sees 'no reason' to bring back The Rani.
'People always ask me, "Do you want to bring back the Rani?" No one knows who The Rani is,' Moffat opined. The writer continued: 'They all know who The Master is, they know Daleks, they probably know who Davros is, but they don't know who The Rani is, so there's no point in bringing her back. If there's a line it's probably somewhere there.' Moffat added that bringing back old villains can be effective for Doctor Who, but said he doesn't want to overly rely on the past. 'Even people who don't know the past very well get thrilled by the idea that you've brought something back,' he explained. 'Everyone got very excited - and by everyone I mean real people - when The Master came back, even though most people could barely remember him.' Moffat concluded: 'It has to be self-explanatory, it has to be free-standing, it has to be clear for everybody. If I did The Meddling Monk teaming up with Mavic Chen's daughter and The Krotons then yeah, that's too much, because no one gives a toss.' Oh, I dunno. I'd rather like to see that one.
And, speaking of yer actual Moffster his very self, the creators of Sherlock have given fans a teaser about the detective show's third series, revealing the three words 'Rat, Wedding, Bow.' Moffat and yer actual Mark Gatiss, and Sherlock producer Sue Vertue, revealed the cryptic clues at a masterclass session on the popular and critically acclaimed BBC1 drama at the Edinburgh International Television Festival on Friday afternoon, which also featured actor Andrew Scott, who plays Jim Moriarty. Moffat stressed that the three words were not programme titles, but might be teases or clues about the three episodes of series three.
The second series of the modern day version of Arthur Conan Doyle's detective stories ended on a cliffhanger, with Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes apparently falling to his death from a building before being revealed in the final shot to have survived (as if anybody doubted for a single second that he wasn't going to). This prompted fevered speculation about how Holmes had faked his own death. Moffat revealed that Sherlock's creators had already decided how it would resolve itself when they finished season two. Gatiss has confirmed that the opening episode of series three will be at least partly based on The Adventure of the Empty House, in which Sherlock Holmes returns after cheating death at the hands of Professor Moriarty in The Final Problem.
BBC2 has been named terrestrial channel of the year at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. The channel's success was announced on Friday at the Channel of the Year Awards, now in their eleventh year. BBC2 has had success over the past year with shows including the award-winning comedy Rev and The Great British Bake Off as well as a number of acclaimed dramas. Digital channel of the year went to BBC4. For the second year in a row, BBC1's Sherlock won the award for the best terrestrial show. Sherlock, which stars yer actual Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman his very self, also picked up the Network And Ones To Watch Programme Choice prize. The award-winning US hit series Mad Men was named digital programme of the year despite the fact that hardly anybody watches it. The Edinburgh International Television Festival was established in 1976 and is attended by more than two thousand delegates.
Sir Chris Hoy has said the greatest legacy of the London 2012 Olympics will be the message that hard work can result in great achievement. The cyclist, who won his record-breaking sixth Olympic gold medal in the Velodrome this summer, wrote a column in the Daily Torygraph about the impact of the games. 'I am not a huge fan of reality TV, although it does seem to have become part of British culture,' Hoy said. Well yeah, but then, so's Adrian Chiles, that doesn't make it right. 'Real life is not about instant gratification or overnight fame. There are no guarantees in life and I can assure you that even the most talented athletes in the world, the ones who seem to make their events look easy, have dedicated thousands of hours to developing that natural talent.' He continued: 'Without that hard work there can be no lasting reward.
So I could not be more delighted that the efforts and talent of Team GB brought such joy and pride. It was very special to feel the country come together for a magical few weeks, and in the months and years to come we should all try to remember exactly how we felt during London 2012.' Hoy said: 'The greatest legacy of all is possibly not even sporting, but a shift in our mindsets. These are not easy times we are living through and for me the most powerful message from London 2012 is that anybody can achieve great things in their lives if they are willing to work hard, make sacrifices, and dedicate themselves to the dream they have.' Hoy recently had to deny claims - made in the Sun tabloid - that he was to become a guest X Factor mentor for this year's series, after he was linked with the show alongside fellow Olympians Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah and Bradley Wiggins. Wiggins has also poo-pah'd off the rumours, and Ennis said that she had not been approached by anyone from the programme although, rather disappointingly, she did admit to being a 'massive fan' of the Wee Shughie McFee, the sour-faced Scottish chef off Crossroads talent show.
Danny Cohen has admitted it's been a 'great time' for the BBC over the period of the Olympics and that he's grateful for the praise the corporation received, even from some quarters that seldom have a good word to say for it. 'I felt that this was a moment of digital watershed for the BBC and for people's relationship with digital television,' he told a seminar at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. So, was the Beeb under pressure to perform following the controversial Jubilee coverage, he was asked? 'No - there was pressure because it was the Olympics. One had nothing to do with the other,' he said. Interviewer Kirsty Wark describes the BBC's Jubilee coverage as 'a bit of a disaster' which Cohen contested, although he did admit that the Pageant Day coverage was not the BBC's 'finest hour' and that he regrets the factual errors that were made. Whether he regrets hiring Fearne Cotton for the gig, he didn't say. But, we can probably guess. However, he praised the same production team's coverage of the Jubilee concert the next day. 'The BBC should be a confident place - it should be open about what doesn't work and what does,' Danny added, suggesting that shows like Have I Got News For You provide the corporation with a chance to poke fun at itself.
Moving onto the BBC's entertainment output and the mixed fortunes of The Voice - Cohen was happy to sing the show's praises, admitting that there were 'a few problems' with the live shows, but arguing that the series picked up again towards the finale. 'We've got a big hit,' he insisted. Is Cohen considering commissioning Simon Cowell for Saturday nights, he was asked? 'I'd consider commissioning any producer for Saturday nights,' he said. On the subject of BBC drama, he was asked if there was a danger of overdosing on period drama? 'I love adaptations, but we're trying to find original voices and narratives for period,' he said, nominating Call the Midwife as a good example. Danny confessed that he was surprised by the success of Call the Midwife - 'I think it's a brilliant show, but I don't think you can ever honestly say that you knew it was going to happen.' The failure of David Jason's The Royal Bodyguard was briefly discussed. 'I would've liked it to have done better - but I think comedy is the single hardest genre,' he noted. 'Some will work better than others. You learn as you go. You move on.' Cohen denied that comedy has to strike gold straight away to justify a long-term commitment. 'We've just brought back In with the Flynns which didn't do amazingly well,' he explained, adding that it's important to have returning series alongside new commissions. Cohen also revealed that there are certain new drama series on BBC1 which he wouldn't have commissioned on his own and credited Ben Stephenson of BBC Drama for broadening the corporation's output.
The Sun has become the first British newspaper to publish photographs of Prince Harry naked in a Las Vegas hotel room, claiming the move was 'in the public interest.' The tabloid's decision comes after Prince Charles's royal aides threatened legal action against newspapers if they published the images, despite the fact they had already been circulated online. One of the two naked pictures of Harry is splashed across the paper's front page with the headline Heir it is!, a day after a male reporter and a female intern posed in a mock-up. In an editorial, the Sun claimed - rather unconvincingly - there was a 'clear public interest' in publishing the photographs 'in order for the debate around them to be fully informed.' And, not at all, to sell newspapers. Oh no. Perish the thought. It added: 'The photos have potential implications for the Prince's image representing Britain around the world. There are questions over his security during the Las Vegas holiday. Questions as to whether his position in the army might be affected. Further, we believe Harry has compromised his own privacy.'
The grainy mobile phone pictures of the prince's strip billiard antics were first published online by the US showbiz gossip website TMZ early on Wednesday. Clarence House confirmed their authenticity but royal aides moved quickly to warn British media organisations not to republish the embarrassing photographs, with newspapers complying - albeit, some rather grudgingly - until the Sun broke ranks on Thursday night. A Press Complaints Commission spokesman said on Thursday: 'This was an editorial decision taken by the Sun. Should the PCC receive a complaint, it will investigate it following normal procedures.' The Sun's managing editor David Dinsmore said the paper had 'thought long and hard' about whether to use the pictures and said it was an issue of freedom of the press rather than because it was moralising about Harry's actions. He said: 'This is about the ludicrous situation where a picture can be seen by hundreds of millions of people around the world on the Internet, but can't be seen in the nation's favourite paper read by eight million people every day. This is about our readers getting involved in discussion with the man who's third in line to the throne, it's as simple as that.' A St James's Palace spokesman said: 'We have made our views on Prince Harry's privacy known. Newspapers regulate themselves, so the publication of the photographs is ultimately a decision for editors to make.' 
There was a mixed reaction to the publication of the photos. Media lawyer Mark Stephens said: 'There is no public interest in publishing these pictures, even the Sun can't come up with a public interest in publishing these pictures, and the fact that they are available in foreign media doesn't make English law any less applicable. They have broken the law cynically, and obviously with a view to obtaining publicity.' Stephens, of law firm Finers Stephens Innocent, said the move had 'put a shot through the bottom of the media boat' in terms of the Leveson inquiry into media ethics. '[Lord Justice Leveson] will be sitting there looking at what the Sun has done, and thinking, "I'm going to have to regulate for the lowest common denominator, because I can't trust them to look after themselves." This shows that the PCC is a toothless watchdog, or lapdog, because it is unable to sanction the Sun for what it has done. The Sun has thumbed its nose at the PCC, and at self regulation. What is Leveson to do when a significant newspaper says, "we don't think self regulation is worth a light, we are going to ignore it?"' Former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott said the Sun had shown 'absolute utter contempt' for the law and for the Leveson inquiry into media ethics. 'It is not about privacy. It is about money, money, money. And they know that by exclusively printing the pictures, assuming they are the only [British] paper which does, they will get everybody buying the paper to see this.' Referring to the PCC, he said: 'They show an utter contempt even for the body they still have some influence in.'
Elisabeth Murdoch has said she has 'absolutely no ambition' to succeed her father, billionaire tyrant Rupert, at the head of media giant News Corporation. One or two people even believed her. Speaking after delivering a speech at the Edinburgh TV Festival, she said she had 'no interest' in the 'top job.' She also revealed that she advised her brother James Murdoch the small and well-known Crystal Tipps lookalike Rebekah Brooks to step down from News International in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal. 'It was said within closed walls and Rebekah did resign,' she said. Eventually. Well-known Crystal Tipps lookalike Brooks was News International chief executive, while James Murdoch the small left his post as executive chairman some months later. He remains deputy chief operating officer of News International's parent company News Corp. Ms Murdoch said it had been 'a nightmare year for the family' but was aware it had 'not been as difficult for us as for the people who have been victims or Milly Dowler's parents.' The hacking of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's voicemail sparked widespread outrage and led to the closure in disgrace and ignominy of the Scum of the World, published by News International. News Corp's other operations include the FOX TV network, the Twentieth Century Fox film studio and Harper Collins books. Murdoch runs TV production company Shine, which makes shows including Masterchef and Merlin for the BBC and also contains the Kudos production company, makers of Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, [spooks] and Hustle. Shine was bought by News Corp last year. 
She said that she was 'pleased' her father had told a parliamentary select committee investigating phone-hacking that giving evidence was 'the most humble day' of his life. 'I know he absolutely meant it and it was, if I'm honest as a daughter, heart-breaking,' she said. Her comments came a day after she delivered the festival's keynote MacTaggart Lecture. One reason for agreeing to take part was to make sure 'not everybody is tarred or marked with the same brush,' she said during a question and answer session on Friday. 'Everyone likes the idea of a soap opera and it's really not that,' she added. 'The reality is we are a very close family.' She used the lecture to voice her support for the BBC, in contrast to James Murdoch the small, who, in a notorious 'greed is good'-style speech described the corporation's size and ambition as 'chilling' when he delivered the lecture in 2009. She also challenged her younger brother's odious assertion three years ago that 'the only reliable guarantee of editorial independence is profit.' He was 'clearly being provocative,' she told the audience, but insisted that 'profit without purpose - or of a moral language - was a recipe for disaster.' Yes love, we've noticed. As, I suspect, have you. Following her lecture, former ITN editor-in-chief Stewart Purvis wrote on Twitter that it should have been titled 'Why I am not my father or my brother.' Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff said there was 'only one way' to look at her speech. 'This is part of a strategic repositioning of Lis Murdoch within the media world, with the business world and within the family,' he told the Reuters news agency.
Jessie J has confirmed that she will return for the second series of The Voice. If anyone's still interested.
Next time you find yourself irritated by the sound of hoodie jyoriders doing handbrake turns and revving their engines as they tear down your avenue, dear blog reader, don't automatically call the police as all may not be quite as it seems.
According to the Daily Lies, a community support officer in Darlington, called out after complaints that 'boy racers' were using a former football stadium for their nefarious skulduggery, was surprised when he arrived to investigate, to find that the culprits were none other than the stars of Top Gear – yer actual Jezza Clarkson, James May and The Stig – filming an item for the next series of the popular BBC2 motoring show. To Clarkson's chagrin, PCSO James Metcalffe had turned up to say 'now then, now then, what's going on 'ere' on a bicycle. 'In London, they issue police with cars,' Jezza is reported to have noted.
ITV's director of television Peter Fincham was unapologetic about striking a one million smackers deal for Red or Black? to be sponsored by Wonga.com, the controversial short-term loan company which has been criticised by figures such as Labour MP Stella Creasey and money expert Martin Lewis. Wonga is sponsoring the second series of Wee Shughie McFee, the sour-faced Scottish chef off Crossroads's game show Red or Black? Creasey has described such firms as 'legal loan sharks,' and appealed to the public to put pressure on the show's hosts Ant McPartlin and Dec Donnelly on Twitter. Fincham was asked in an interview at the Edinburgh International Television Festival on Friday whether ITV had acted responsibly in striking the deal with Wonga. 'We are a commercial broadcaster, our programmes are free at the point of viewing and they have to be paid for by advertising and sponsorship,' said Fincham.
'I don't think it is for me to sit here and opine about companies that sponsor and advertise in our programmes. Quite clearly Wonga is compliant [with advertising and broadcast regulations]. It is one of those things that help us make Red or Black? and Saturday night entertainment.' Fincham also said that ITV's big entertainment 'juggernauts' – such as The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent – were, in effect, smothering the market and stopping new formats from emerging. 'I think there is an issue,' he said. 'The generation of game shows that started in the early part of the last decade still dominate. The dominance of these big entertainment brands is an issue. It is very hard for everyone, including the BBC and Channel Four, to grow other shows. They take up so much of the schedule, and budget, and audiences like them. Does ITV's audience want X Factor for the second half of the year occupying a big space in the schedule. Absolutely. Take The Voice out and there haven't been many new shows in the last few years. Big juggernauts are hard to find.'
Law & Order: UK, Scott & Bailey and Vera have all been renewed for new series by ITV. Freema Agyeman and Harriet Walters will be absent from Law & Order's eight-part seventh run due to other filming and theatre commitments. However, the partnership between Bradley Walsh and Paul Nicholls will remain on the crime procedural.
Brenda Blethyn will reprise her lead role in Vera for the drama's third series of two-hour stories, of which there will again be four. Suranne Jones and Lesley Sharp return to their parts in Scott & Bailey for a third series. Laura Mackie, ITV's head of drama commissioning, said in a statement: 'We're delighted to have Law & Order: UK, Vera and Scott & Bailey back in production. The recommissions show that we have a really strong slate of returning series coming to ITV in the next twelve months which complements perfectly with the new drama we're commissioning.' Scott & Bailey launched with 8.2m in 2010, still the highest-rating drama series premiere since 2005's Doctor Who. Meanwhile, Vera recorded its best ever audience of 6.1m for its 2012 finale in May, building on a fairly mediocre start.
Comedies by David Walliams and Ben Elton and a Saturday night game show called The Brightest Briton are among new commissions announced by the BBC. Danny Cohen unveiled the shows on Friday at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. Walliams will also take an acting role in Autumn Leaves, to be set in the staff room of a secondary school. The Little Britain actor said he was 'delighted to be back at the BBC writing and acting in a new sitcom.' Elton's six-part series, Slings and Arrows, will see David Haig from The Thin Blue Line play the role of council officer Gerald B Meakin.
According to the BBC, the character is 'a recent divorcee and new single dad' whose life is 'one long struggle against the petty irritations which bedevil all our lives.' Elton said it was 'an honour and a privilege' to be writing for the BBC again. 'All my happiest television memories concern BBC comedy and in particular BBC sitcom,' he added. 'I'm as excited today as I was when The Young Ones was commissioned thirty years ago.' Contestants 'from all walks of life' will take part in The Brightest Briton as the show attempts to find Britain's most intelligent person. Cohen also announced two new in-house dramas for the channel, Quirke and The Ark. The former, based on the novels by John Banville, will star Gabriel Byrne as a pathologist in 1950s Dublin. The Ark, written by Sarah Phelps, is based around the experiences of World War I medics.
Lorraine Heggessey, the former BBC1 controller, has said the corporation's commissioning process is too bureaucratic and should be significantly pared back as part of cost-cutting plans. Heggessey said the BBC imposes 'a huge burden' on programme-makers with layers of management and working groups. 'The BBC places such a burden on its staff in terms of all these other things they have to do that aren't necessarily to do with their job,' she told the Edinburgh Festival on Thursday. 'When you leave the BBC, it's suddenly like I can do my day job in a day rather than take all this other stuff home with me all the time.'
Heggessey left the BBC in 2005 and is now executive chairwoman of the independent production firm Boom Pictures. She compared the BBC's commissioning process to ITV's, which she said had 'far fewer staff' and was 'very efficient.' Asked by the media pundit Steve Hewlett, who chaired a session on the future of the BBC, whether the corporation's commissioning management should be significantly trimmed, Heggessey replied: 'I think it should.' She added: 'The BBC has a very complex commissioning system with probably too many layers. The BBC imposes such a bureaucracy on these people so they have to go to so many meetings rather than concentrate on their jobs. You have too many people in the chain of power to make a decision. It's that thing of don't take a no from somebody who can't give you a yes.'
BBC4 has apparently confirmed that it has picked up Parks and Recreation. The US comedy has broadcast for four seasons on NBC, with a fifth currently in the works.
Channel controller Richard Klein appeared to announce the acquisition in a BBC statement, promising 'a year of comedy led by hit US comedy Parks and Recreation.' However, the relevant sentence was later, mysteriously, deleted from Klein's section on the BBC media centre website. The sitcom stars Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, an optimistic, mid-level bureaucrat who works at the Parks department in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana. Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Pratt, Adam Scott and Rob Lowe also appear in the series, which was co-created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur.
From the people who brought you Extreme Fishing with Robson Green, Channel Five, comes Extreme Railways with Chris Tarrant. The new commission was unveiled at the Edinburgh Festival on Thursday by Channel Five's controller, Jeff Ford, and will see the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? host grappling with timetables in the jungles of Congo, leaves on the line across the Andes and the wrong sort of snow in a desert. No word yet on whether Tarrent will also be recreating the ending to Runaway Train, with a snow-lashed Jon Voight atop the aforementioned unruly locomotive as it hurtles through the Alaskian tundra.
Stuart Murphy, the director of Sky entertainment, has dismissed criticism that the satellite broadcaster uses its chequebook to attract talent as 'a load of shit.' Oh well, at least he's upfront about it. Murphy fought back against accusations that Sky was attracting talent by the power of its financial muscle alone. The broadcaster has made a major push into scripted drama and comedy in the past couple of years as part of a move to double its investment in UK originated non-sports programming to six hundred million quid a year by 2014. 'When the chairman of the BBC and the director general said "Sky are doing well because of the money," I just thought that is so pathetic. You can't think of any other reason why anyone would work at Sky: not the relationships I've had twenty years in the industry. It's just money. What a load of shit,' Murphy said, in Edinburgh on Friday morning. 'It's not because we have very clear vision, because we don't leave scripts on our desks for a year and a half, because we proactively major [on] talent and say can we do something for you.'
He had advice too, for Channel Four, who piloted the comedy, Chickens, that Sky has since picked up as a series, saying he was 'amazed' the channel turned down the show. 'If I was at Channel Four and talent that had delivered my biggest hit in comedy for fifteen years have an idea, I would probably not just do a pilot and stick it out late at night,' he said. Murphy said the broadcaster was hoping to change the face of British drama with an announcement due next month. 'As you saw a moment in comedy [from Sky], you're absolutely going to see a moment in drama,' said Murphy, who oversees Sky1, Sky Living, Sky Atlantic and Sky Arts. He also welcomed the idea of Elisabeth Murdoch one day heading up the broadcaster, saying he would like to have her as a boss – and that he was unlikely to ever head back to the BBC. The executive also defended sums paid for Premier League rights, saying that they added up. 'It made sense to pay that for the Premier League and we're happy because sport is the driver of Sky.' Tackled on ratings, Murphy said overnight figures, which only provide live and recorded viewing on the day of transmission, were only part of the story and said it would be 'frankly a bit thick of people' to rely only on them, and that for Sky it did not make sense to judge a show just on its first broadcast.
UK viewers are expected to watch almost a trillion television adverts in 2012, with the average person seeing forty nine adverts per day, according to new research. Or, in the case of people who don't watch commercial television, no adverts. In a report coinciding with the start of the Edinburgh Festival, Deloitte said that television advertising has made the greatest impact of any medium in 2012 for the fourth year in a row. The research indicated that fifty seven per cent of viewers rated it as having the biggest impact on them. Using data for the first quarter of 2012, Deloitte calculated that TV viewers in Britain will watch almost a trillion adverts this year. This breaks down as forty nine watched on average every day, although that does not include fast-forwarded adverts, those watched by under four-year-olds, or online video advertising. 'The UK's willingness to consume adverts in such quantities and advertisers' continued eagerness to invest billions in TV advertising perplexes many commentators,' said Paul Lee, director of technology, media and telecommunications research at Deloitte. 'Some regard the traditional TV advertising model, based on the thirty-second spot, as fundamentally broken. Deloitte's view, based on our research, is that the traditional TV advertising model is neither broken nor breaking. It has, for the fourth year running, maintained its ranking as the advertising medium with the greatest impact and by a clear margin.'
Channel Four boss Jay Hunt has confirmed that the controversial Drugs: Live project will broadcast this autumn. The long-awaited TV show will feature celebrities and ordinary people testing illegal substances, and is intended to launch a discussion on the impact of drugs on individuals.
'Half a million people a year are quite regularly taking ecstasy,' said Hunt at the Edinburgh TV Festival. 'We're having an intelligent conversation about what the impact of that is going to be. It will air this autumn and it's been quite a journey getting there. I was very tempted to make a show called The Making of Drugs: Live.' The C4 controller confirmed that the show would involve Keith Allen and members of the public, such as a female vicar, taking MDMA. Vicar on Drugs. Sounds like a Morrissey song, doesn't it? 'It will be a weird and eclectic bunch of people,' she said. Hunt also revealed that large chunks of the show would have to be pre-recorded because of the requirement to do blind testing.
And so to yer actual Keith Telly Topping's 45 of the Day, dear blog reader. For those of you who fancy a bit of yer actual space disco here's, err, Space. With some disco. Nice minimoogs!
The seven-part series will follow teams of comedians as they use their stand-up routines to avoid being ejected from the competition. Tennant's other forthcoming projects include ITV crime drama Broadchurch and BBC2's political mini-series The Politician's Husband. The Scottish actor is also rumoured - mainly by The Usual Suspects, it should be noted - to be making a return to Doctor Who for the show's fiftieth anniversary in 2013. 'I'm sure there are lots of plans being discussed,' he said earlier this month in relation to this. 'I am not confirming nor denying anything.' One for all From The North readers down under now. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has confirmed via Twitter that Asylum of the Daleks will have its Australian premiere on ABC1 on Saturday 8 September at 7.30pm. It will also be repeated on ABC2 on Tuesdays at 9.30pm starting from 11 September. As previously reported, Asylum of the Daleks will debut in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States on 1 September.
Doctor Who showrunner The Lord Thy God Steven Moffat (Thou Shalt Worship No Other Gods Before He) has said that 1980s Doctor Who villainess The Rani is 'unlikely' to return to the series. To the surprise of no one. Tragically, he didn't go on to confirm that The Borad, The Creature from The Pit and The Dominators are, also, not coming back any time soon but, we'll take that as read. Kate O'Mara played the evil Time Lady in two serials in the mid-1980s and later revived the role for the 1993 Children in Need special Dimensions in Time. None of them were much cop, just in case you missed them. A return for the character has occasionally been rumours in Doctor Who fan circles, albeit not by anyone that actually matters, and the Sun even lied five years ago that Zöe Lucker had been cast in the role. That turned out, as most things which appear in the Sun, to be a load of old shite. But Moffat has now told SFX magazine that he sees 'no reason' to bring back The Rani.
'People always ask me, "Do you want to bring back the Rani?" No one knows who The Rani is,' Moffat opined. The writer continued: 'They all know who The Master is, they know Daleks, they probably know who Davros is, but they don't know who The Rani is, so there's no point in bringing her back. If there's a line it's probably somewhere there.' Moffat added that bringing back old villains can be effective for Doctor Who, but said he doesn't want to overly rely on the past. 'Even people who don't know the past very well get thrilled by the idea that you've brought something back,' he explained. 'Everyone got very excited - and by everyone I mean real people - when The Master came back, even though most people could barely remember him.' Moffat concluded: 'It has to be self-explanatory, it has to be free-standing, it has to be clear for everybody. If I did The Meddling Monk teaming up with Mavic Chen's daughter and The Krotons then yeah, that's too much, because no one gives a toss.' Oh, I dunno. I'd rather like to see that one.And, speaking of yer actual Moffster his very self, the creators of Sherlock have given fans a teaser about the detective show's third series, revealing the three words 'Rat, Wedding, Bow.' Moffat and yer actual Mark Gatiss, and Sherlock producer Sue Vertue, revealed the cryptic clues at a masterclass session on the popular and critically acclaimed BBC1 drama at the Edinburgh International Television Festival on Friday afternoon, which also featured actor Andrew Scott, who plays Jim Moriarty. Moffat stressed that the three words were not programme titles, but might be teases or clues about the three episodes of series three.
The second series of the modern day version of Arthur Conan Doyle's detective stories ended on a cliffhanger, with Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes apparently falling to his death from a building before being revealed in the final shot to have survived (as if anybody doubted for a single second that he wasn't going to). This prompted fevered speculation about how Holmes had faked his own death. Moffat revealed that Sherlock's creators had already decided how it would resolve itself when they finished season two. Gatiss has confirmed that the opening episode of series three will be at least partly based on The Adventure of the Empty House, in which Sherlock Holmes returns after cheating death at the hands of Professor Moriarty in The Final Problem. BBC2 has been named terrestrial channel of the year at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. The channel's success was announced on Friday at the Channel of the Year Awards, now in their eleventh year. BBC2 has had success over the past year with shows including the award-winning comedy Rev and The Great British Bake Off as well as a number of acclaimed dramas. Digital channel of the year went to BBC4. For the second year in a row, BBC1's Sherlock won the award for the best terrestrial show. Sherlock, which stars yer actual Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman his very self, also picked up the Network And Ones To Watch Programme Choice prize. The award-winning US hit series Mad Men was named digital programme of the year despite the fact that hardly anybody watches it. The Edinburgh International Television Festival was established in 1976 and is attended by more than two thousand delegates.
Sir Chris Hoy has said the greatest legacy of the London 2012 Olympics will be the message that hard work can result in great achievement. The cyclist, who won his record-breaking sixth Olympic gold medal in the Velodrome this summer, wrote a column in the Daily Torygraph about the impact of the games. 'I am not a huge fan of reality TV, although it does seem to have become part of British culture,' Hoy said. Well yeah, but then, so's Adrian Chiles, that doesn't make it right. 'Real life is not about instant gratification or overnight fame. There are no guarantees in life and I can assure you that even the most talented athletes in the world, the ones who seem to make their events look easy, have dedicated thousands of hours to developing that natural talent.' He continued: 'Without that hard work there can be no lasting reward.
So I could not be more delighted that the efforts and talent of Team GB brought such joy and pride. It was very special to feel the country come together for a magical few weeks, and in the months and years to come we should all try to remember exactly how we felt during London 2012.' Hoy said: 'The greatest legacy of all is possibly not even sporting, but a shift in our mindsets. These are not easy times we are living through and for me the most powerful message from London 2012 is that anybody can achieve great things in their lives if they are willing to work hard, make sacrifices, and dedicate themselves to the dream they have.' Hoy recently had to deny claims - made in the Sun tabloid - that he was to become a guest X Factor mentor for this year's series, after he was linked with the show alongside fellow Olympians Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah and Bradley Wiggins. Wiggins has also poo-pah'd off the rumours, and Ennis said that she had not been approached by anyone from the programme although, rather disappointingly, she did admit to being a 'massive fan' of the Wee Shughie McFee, the sour-faced Scottish chef off Crossroads talent show.Danny Cohen has admitted it's been a 'great time' for the BBC over the period of the Olympics and that he's grateful for the praise the corporation received, even from some quarters that seldom have a good word to say for it. 'I felt that this was a moment of digital watershed for the BBC and for people's relationship with digital television,' he told a seminar at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. So, was the Beeb under pressure to perform following the controversial Jubilee coverage, he was asked? 'No - there was pressure because it was the Olympics. One had nothing to do with the other,' he said. Interviewer Kirsty Wark describes the BBC's Jubilee coverage as 'a bit of a disaster' which Cohen contested, although he did admit that the Pageant Day coverage was not the BBC's 'finest hour' and that he regrets the factual errors that were made. Whether he regrets hiring Fearne Cotton for the gig, he didn't say. But, we can probably guess. However, he praised the same production team's coverage of the Jubilee concert the next day. 'The BBC should be a confident place - it should be open about what doesn't work and what does,' Danny added, suggesting that shows like Have I Got News For You provide the corporation with a chance to poke fun at itself.
Moving onto the BBC's entertainment output and the mixed fortunes of The Voice - Cohen was happy to sing the show's praises, admitting that there were 'a few problems' with the live shows, but arguing that the series picked up again towards the finale. 'We've got a big hit,' he insisted. Is Cohen considering commissioning Simon Cowell for Saturday nights, he was asked? 'I'd consider commissioning any producer for Saturday nights,' he said. On the subject of BBC drama, he was asked if there was a danger of overdosing on period drama? 'I love adaptations, but we're trying to find original voices and narratives for period,' he said, nominating Call the Midwife as a good example. Danny confessed that he was surprised by the success of Call the Midwife - 'I think it's a brilliant show, but I don't think you can ever honestly say that you knew it was going to happen.' The failure of David Jason's The Royal Bodyguard was briefly discussed. 'I would've liked it to have done better - but I think comedy is the single hardest genre,' he noted. 'Some will work better than others. You learn as you go. You move on.' Cohen denied that comedy has to strike gold straight away to justify a long-term commitment. 'We've just brought back In with the Flynns which didn't do amazingly well,' he explained, adding that it's important to have returning series alongside new commissions. Cohen also revealed that there are certain new drama series on BBC1 which he wouldn't have commissioned on his own and credited Ben Stephenson of BBC Drama for broadening the corporation's output.The Sun has become the first British newspaper to publish photographs of Prince Harry naked in a Las Vegas hotel room, claiming the move was 'in the public interest.' The tabloid's decision comes after Prince Charles's royal aides threatened legal action against newspapers if they published the images, despite the fact they had already been circulated online. One of the two naked pictures of Harry is splashed across the paper's front page with the headline Heir it is!, a day after a male reporter and a female intern posed in a mock-up. In an editorial, the Sun claimed - rather unconvincingly - there was a 'clear public interest' in publishing the photographs 'in order for the debate around them to be fully informed.' And, not at all, to sell newspapers. Oh no. Perish the thought. It added: 'The photos have potential implications for the Prince's image representing Britain around the world. There are questions over his security during the Las Vegas holiday. Questions as to whether his position in the army might be affected. Further, we believe Harry has compromised his own privacy.'
The grainy mobile phone pictures of the prince's strip billiard antics were first published online by the US showbiz gossip website TMZ early on Wednesday. Clarence House confirmed their authenticity but royal aides moved quickly to warn British media organisations not to republish the embarrassing photographs, with newspapers complying - albeit, some rather grudgingly - until the Sun broke ranks on Thursday night. A Press Complaints Commission spokesman said on Thursday: 'This was an editorial decision taken by the Sun. Should the PCC receive a complaint, it will investigate it following normal procedures.' The Sun's managing editor David Dinsmore said the paper had 'thought long and hard' about whether to use the pictures and said it was an issue of freedom of the press rather than because it was moralising about Harry's actions. He said: 'This is about the ludicrous situation where a picture can be seen by hundreds of millions of people around the world on the Internet, but can't be seen in the nation's favourite paper read by eight million people every day. This is about our readers getting involved in discussion with the man who's third in line to the throne, it's as simple as that.' A St James's Palace spokesman said: 'We have made our views on Prince Harry's privacy known. Newspapers regulate themselves, so the publication of the photographs is ultimately a decision for editors to make.' 
There was a mixed reaction to the publication of the photos. Media lawyer Mark Stephens said: 'There is no public interest in publishing these pictures, even the Sun can't come up with a public interest in publishing these pictures, and the fact that they are available in foreign media doesn't make English law any less applicable. They have broken the law cynically, and obviously with a view to obtaining publicity.' Stephens, of law firm Finers Stephens Innocent, said the move had 'put a shot through the bottom of the media boat' in terms of the Leveson inquiry into media ethics. '[Lord Justice Leveson] will be sitting there looking at what the Sun has done, and thinking, "I'm going to have to regulate for the lowest common denominator, because I can't trust them to look after themselves." This shows that the PCC is a toothless watchdog, or lapdog, because it is unable to sanction the Sun for what it has done. The Sun has thumbed its nose at the PCC, and at self regulation. What is Leveson to do when a significant newspaper says, "we don't think self regulation is worth a light, we are going to ignore it?"' Former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott said the Sun had shown 'absolute utter contempt' for the law and for the Leveson inquiry into media ethics. 'It is not about privacy. It is about money, money, money. And they know that by exclusively printing the pictures, assuming they are the only [British] paper which does, they will get everybody buying the paper to see this.' Referring to the PCC, he said: 'They show an utter contempt even for the body they still have some influence in.'
She said that she was 'pleased' her father had told a parliamentary select committee investigating phone-hacking that giving evidence was 'the most humble day' of his life. 'I know he absolutely meant it and it was, if I'm honest as a daughter, heart-breaking,' she said. Her comments came a day after she delivered the festival's keynote MacTaggart Lecture. One reason for agreeing to take part was to make sure 'not everybody is tarred or marked with the same brush,' she said during a question and answer session on Friday. 'Everyone likes the idea of a soap opera and it's really not that,' she added. 'The reality is we are a very close family.' She used the lecture to voice her support for the BBC, in contrast to James Murdoch the small, who, in a notorious 'greed is good'-style speech described the corporation's size and ambition as 'chilling' when he delivered the lecture in 2009. She also challenged her younger brother's odious assertion three years ago that 'the only reliable guarantee of editorial independence is profit.' He was 'clearly being provocative,' she told the audience, but insisted that 'profit without purpose - or of a moral language - was a recipe for disaster.' Yes love, we've noticed. As, I suspect, have you. Following her lecture, former ITN editor-in-chief Stewart Purvis wrote on Twitter that it should have been titled 'Why I am not my father or my brother.' Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff said there was 'only one way' to look at her speech. 'This is part of a strategic repositioning of Lis Murdoch within the media world, with the business world and within the family,' he told the Reuters news agency. Jessie J has confirmed that she will return for the second series of The Voice. If anyone's still interested.
Next time you find yourself irritated by the sound of hoodie jyoriders doing handbrake turns and revving their engines as they tear down your avenue, dear blog reader, don't automatically call the police as all may not be quite as it seems.
According to the Daily Lies, a community support officer in Darlington, called out after complaints that 'boy racers' were using a former football stadium for their nefarious skulduggery, was surprised when he arrived to investigate, to find that the culprits were none other than the stars of Top Gear – yer actual Jezza Clarkson, James May and The Stig – filming an item for the next series of the popular BBC2 motoring show. To Clarkson's chagrin, PCSO James Metcalffe had turned up to say 'now then, now then, what's going on 'ere' on a bicycle. 'In London, they issue police with cars,' Jezza is reported to have noted. ITV's director of television Peter Fincham was unapologetic about striking a one million smackers deal for Red or Black? to be sponsored by Wonga.com, the controversial short-term loan company which has been criticised by figures such as Labour MP Stella Creasey and money expert Martin Lewis. Wonga is sponsoring the second series of Wee Shughie McFee, the sour-faced Scottish chef off Crossroads's game show Red or Black? Creasey has described such firms as 'legal loan sharks,' and appealed to the public to put pressure on the show's hosts Ant McPartlin and Dec Donnelly on Twitter. Fincham was asked in an interview at the Edinburgh International Television Festival on Friday whether ITV had acted responsibly in striking the deal with Wonga. 'We are a commercial broadcaster, our programmes are free at the point of viewing and they have to be paid for by advertising and sponsorship,' said Fincham.
'I don't think it is for me to sit here and opine about companies that sponsor and advertise in our programmes. Quite clearly Wonga is compliant [with advertising and broadcast regulations]. It is one of those things that help us make Red or Black? and Saturday night entertainment.' Fincham also said that ITV's big entertainment 'juggernauts' – such as The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent – were, in effect, smothering the market and stopping new formats from emerging. 'I think there is an issue,' he said. 'The generation of game shows that started in the early part of the last decade still dominate. The dominance of these big entertainment brands is an issue. It is very hard for everyone, including the BBC and Channel Four, to grow other shows. They take up so much of the schedule, and budget, and audiences like them. Does ITV's audience want X Factor for the second half of the year occupying a big space in the schedule. Absolutely. Take The Voice out and there haven't been many new shows in the last few years. Big juggernauts are hard to find.'Law & Order: UK, Scott & Bailey and Vera have all been renewed for new series by ITV. Freema Agyeman and Harriet Walters will be absent from Law & Order's eight-part seventh run due to other filming and theatre commitments. However, the partnership between Bradley Walsh and Paul Nicholls will remain on the crime procedural.
Brenda Blethyn will reprise her lead role in Vera for the drama's third series of two-hour stories, of which there will again be four. Suranne Jones and Lesley Sharp return to their parts in Scott & Bailey for a third series. Laura Mackie, ITV's head of drama commissioning, said in a statement: 'We're delighted to have Law & Order: UK, Vera and Scott & Bailey back in production. The recommissions show that we have a really strong slate of returning series coming to ITV in the next twelve months which complements perfectly with the new drama we're commissioning.' Scott & Bailey launched with 8.2m in 2010, still the highest-rating drama series premiere since 2005's Doctor Who. Meanwhile, Vera recorded its best ever audience of 6.1m for its 2012 finale in May, building on a fairly mediocre start.Comedies by David Walliams and Ben Elton and a Saturday night game show called The Brightest Briton are among new commissions announced by the BBC. Danny Cohen unveiled the shows on Friday at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. Walliams will also take an acting role in Autumn Leaves, to be set in the staff room of a secondary school. The Little Britain actor said he was 'delighted to be back at the BBC writing and acting in a new sitcom.' Elton's six-part series, Slings and Arrows, will see David Haig from The Thin Blue Line play the role of council officer Gerald B Meakin.
According to the BBC, the character is 'a recent divorcee and new single dad' whose life is 'one long struggle against the petty irritations which bedevil all our lives.' Elton said it was 'an honour and a privilege' to be writing for the BBC again. 'All my happiest television memories concern BBC comedy and in particular BBC sitcom,' he added. 'I'm as excited today as I was when The Young Ones was commissioned thirty years ago.' Contestants 'from all walks of life' will take part in The Brightest Briton as the show attempts to find Britain's most intelligent person. Cohen also announced two new in-house dramas for the channel, Quirke and The Ark. The former, based on the novels by John Banville, will star Gabriel Byrne as a pathologist in 1950s Dublin. The Ark, written by Sarah Phelps, is based around the experiences of World War I medics.Lorraine Heggessey, the former BBC1 controller, has said the corporation's commissioning process is too bureaucratic and should be significantly pared back as part of cost-cutting plans. Heggessey said the BBC imposes 'a huge burden' on programme-makers with layers of management and working groups. 'The BBC places such a burden on its staff in terms of all these other things they have to do that aren't necessarily to do with their job,' she told the Edinburgh Festival on Thursday. 'When you leave the BBC, it's suddenly like I can do my day job in a day rather than take all this other stuff home with me all the time.'
Heggessey left the BBC in 2005 and is now executive chairwoman of the independent production firm Boom Pictures. She compared the BBC's commissioning process to ITV's, which she said had 'far fewer staff' and was 'very efficient.' Asked by the media pundit Steve Hewlett, who chaired a session on the future of the BBC, whether the corporation's commissioning management should be significantly trimmed, Heggessey replied: 'I think it should.' She added: 'The BBC has a very complex commissioning system with probably too many layers. The BBC imposes such a bureaucracy on these people so they have to go to so many meetings rather than concentrate on their jobs. You have too many people in the chain of power to make a decision. It's that thing of don't take a no from somebody who can't give you a yes.'BBC4 has apparently confirmed that it has picked up Parks and Recreation. The US comedy has broadcast for four seasons on NBC, with a fifth currently in the works.
Channel controller Richard Klein appeared to announce the acquisition in a BBC statement, promising 'a year of comedy led by hit US comedy Parks and Recreation.' However, the relevant sentence was later, mysteriously, deleted from Klein's section on the BBC media centre website. The sitcom stars Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, an optimistic, mid-level bureaucrat who works at the Parks department in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana. Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Pratt, Adam Scott and Rob Lowe also appear in the series, which was co-created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur.From the people who brought you Extreme Fishing with Robson Green, Channel Five, comes Extreme Railways with Chris Tarrant. The new commission was unveiled at the Edinburgh Festival on Thursday by Channel Five's controller, Jeff Ford, and will see the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? host grappling with timetables in the jungles of Congo, leaves on the line across the Andes and the wrong sort of snow in a desert. No word yet on whether Tarrent will also be recreating the ending to Runaway Train, with a snow-lashed Jon Voight atop the aforementioned unruly locomotive as it hurtles through the Alaskian tundra.
Stuart Murphy, the director of Sky entertainment, has dismissed criticism that the satellite broadcaster uses its chequebook to attract talent as 'a load of shit.' Oh well, at least he's upfront about it. Murphy fought back against accusations that Sky was attracting talent by the power of its financial muscle alone. The broadcaster has made a major push into scripted drama and comedy in the past couple of years as part of a move to double its investment in UK originated non-sports programming to six hundred million quid a year by 2014. 'When the chairman of the BBC and the director general said "Sky are doing well because of the money," I just thought that is so pathetic. You can't think of any other reason why anyone would work at Sky: not the relationships I've had twenty years in the industry. It's just money. What a load of shit,' Murphy said, in Edinburgh on Friday morning. 'It's not because we have very clear vision, because we don't leave scripts on our desks for a year and a half, because we proactively major [on] talent and say can we do something for you.'
He had advice too, for Channel Four, who piloted the comedy, Chickens, that Sky has since picked up as a series, saying he was 'amazed' the channel turned down the show. 'If I was at Channel Four and talent that had delivered my biggest hit in comedy for fifteen years have an idea, I would probably not just do a pilot and stick it out late at night,' he said. Murphy said the broadcaster was hoping to change the face of British drama with an announcement due next month. 'As you saw a moment in comedy [from Sky], you're absolutely going to see a moment in drama,' said Murphy, who oversees Sky1, Sky Living, Sky Atlantic and Sky Arts. He also welcomed the idea of Elisabeth Murdoch one day heading up the broadcaster, saying he would like to have her as a boss – and that he was unlikely to ever head back to the BBC. The executive also defended sums paid for Premier League rights, saying that they added up. 'It made sense to pay that for the Premier League and we're happy because sport is the driver of Sky.' Tackled on ratings, Murphy said overnight figures, which only provide live and recorded viewing on the day of transmission, were only part of the story and said it would be 'frankly a bit thick of people' to rely only on them, and that for Sky it did not make sense to judge a show just on its first broadcast.UK viewers are expected to watch almost a trillion television adverts in 2012, with the average person seeing forty nine adverts per day, according to new research. Or, in the case of people who don't watch commercial television, no adverts. In a report coinciding with the start of the Edinburgh Festival, Deloitte said that television advertising has made the greatest impact of any medium in 2012 for the fourth year in a row. The research indicated that fifty seven per cent of viewers rated it as having the biggest impact on them. Using data for the first quarter of 2012, Deloitte calculated that TV viewers in Britain will watch almost a trillion adverts this year. This breaks down as forty nine watched on average every day, although that does not include fast-forwarded adverts, those watched by under four-year-olds, or online video advertising. 'The UK's willingness to consume adverts in such quantities and advertisers' continued eagerness to invest billions in TV advertising perplexes many commentators,' said Paul Lee, director of technology, media and telecommunications research at Deloitte. 'Some regard the traditional TV advertising model, based on the thirty-second spot, as fundamentally broken. Deloitte's view, based on our research, is that the traditional TV advertising model is neither broken nor breaking. It has, for the fourth year running, maintained its ranking as the advertising medium with the greatest impact and by a clear margin.'
Channel Four boss Jay Hunt has confirmed that the controversial Drugs: Live project will broadcast this autumn. The long-awaited TV show will feature celebrities and ordinary people testing illegal substances, and is intended to launch a discussion on the impact of drugs on individuals.
'Half a million people a year are quite regularly taking ecstasy,' said Hunt at the Edinburgh TV Festival. 'We're having an intelligent conversation about what the impact of that is going to be. It will air this autumn and it's been quite a journey getting there. I was very tempted to make a show called The Making of Drugs: Live.' The C4 controller confirmed that the show would involve Keith Allen and members of the public, such as a female vicar, taking MDMA. Vicar on Drugs. Sounds like a Morrissey song, doesn't it? 'It will be a weird and eclectic bunch of people,' she said. Hunt also revealed that large chunks of the show would have to be pre-recorded because of the requirement to do blind testing.And so to yer actual Keith Telly Topping's 45 of the Day, dear blog reader. For those of you who fancy a bit of yer actual space disco here's, err, Space. With some disco. Nice minimoogs!
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