Boxing Day TV Weekly

Welcome to another edition of TV Weekly, wrapping up all the good, the bad and the ugly telly news stories in short.

Well we’ve been off for the festive period but return this boxing day a bit like your tight relative who doesn’t bare gifts – with little to report. Where is all the dross? Where are the stories to make fun of? Its like Jade Goodie has decided not to seek media attention and Kerri Katona has given up the cheap Iceland booze.

So with the lack of ‘none news’ we present what little scraps of telly news there is to shove in the boxing day file:

400 for Staff

Around 400 fans turned up for the funeral of Kathy Staff on Tuesday. The Crossroads and Last of the Summer Wine actress died aged 80 after a short illness. A new series of the ‘Summer Wine’ sitcom has already been recorded without Staff, it will air in early 2009.

Eartha Kitt Dies

Singer and actress Eartha Kitt died yesterday. The 81-year-old found television fame in the 1960s as Cat Woman in Batman. She had a long music career from the 1950s to the 1980s and was still performing concerts including an event with the Minnesota Orchestra on December 13th. She was also booked for several events next year including a gig with the Springfield Symphony orchestra in February 2009.

Chiles On Your Box

Sport and lifestyle presenter Adrian Chiles has been named the most watched man on British television this year. The One Show and Match Of The Day 2 host knocked last year’s holders Ant and Dec from the top spot after statistics showed that he broadcast to a total audience of 1.04 billion in 2008.

Other highly watched telly stars include Philip Scofield with 677.6m, Noel Edmonds 611.7m and Fern Britton with 494.2m.

Quick Note

Have to say I love ‘Star Stories’ on Channel 4. The Heather Mills spoof has to be the best so far. More so for the fact they were brave enough to call Piers Morgan a T**t in that edition. He was no doubt too busy making up stories for his old pals at The Mirror to notice.

No Farewell for ITV News staff

ITV news staff at Tyne Tees have been apparently warned that they must not have collections or leaving presentations for colleagues losing their jobs at the station.

Over 90 workers are being made redundant due to the North East station merging with nearby Border Television – which serves Cumbria and south Scotland. The merger should be completed by March next year.

The order not to mark staff leaving, due to their being so many sackings, has been issued by News boss Catherine Houlihan.

A leaked memo from Houlihan read: “The sheer level of departures means we cannot do this or anything similar. Any farewell gestures should be done on an individual basis, and colleagues should not be presented with envelopes day after day. No one is rich at the moment and many people are facing an uncertain financial future.

“As a matter of policy, we should avoid group cards and collections and leave any informal arrangements to individuals.”

The only on-air farewell screened was for weatherman Bob Johnson who retired from Tyne Tees after seventeen years. Also departing on the same day were anchors Kim Inglis and Dawn Thewlis – the latter had been with the company since the 1980s – however no mention was given to these departures on news show North East Tonight.

ITV commented that there was no national ban, and it was up to the individual regions to decide how to handle staff departures.

Ofcom Attacked by BECTU

Broadcasting union BECTU has attacked television regulator Ofcom for failing to maintain and strengthen public service programming.

Commenting on the plans to lessen PSB requirements for some broadcasters and Ofcom’s approval of ITV’s £40m cut in its local news budget, BECTU suggest that this decision has undermined the regulators earlier indication that it would not give in to ITV shareholders for the rest of the remaining licence period.

Bectu said: “This is a fundamental – potentially terminal – erosion of ITV’s distinctive characteristic of a strong regional structure. It will result in a regional news structure which is meaningless to viewers (with regions extending, for example, from Penzance to Worcester and Dumfries to Yorkshire).”

The union also criticised Ofocm for the lack of support to the regional ITV system, which many believe still works. It has been blatantly sabotaged by the company concerned to save money.

“We strongly believe that it should be required to maintain its existing regional commitments – with the promise of additional funding prior to any point at which its PSB licence is no longer commercially viable. That point has not yet been reached. The regional cuts are therefore in our view completely unjustified.”

We Pick The Flops

Over 2008 we’ve been 99.8% right in reporting what will flop – most, if not all – being ITV programmes. 2009 will certainly be interesting. Lets just list some early predictions:

Flops for 2009? Anything presented by Antony Cotton. The Piers Morgan chat show – and, just like this year, 9 out of 10 ITV Dramas.