TV

Children’s television makers have said that distinctly British programmes for young viewers could vanish from screens and be replaced with imported shows, after ministers quietly closed a £44m fund designed to support the sector.

The Young Audiences Content Fund had been intended to help British broadcasters compete with the globalised children’s output available on YouTube and cartoons on US streaming services such as Netflix.

It was set up after the prodnoses stopped people advertising burgers to kiddies. The correct answer being to allow the burger ads, collect the money, then make programmes.

Actresses should be proud to play wives and mothers – rather than action roles that are “basically just men” in female form, Claire Foy has said.

Yes, obviously. This bit slightly tickled:

Foy will be seen next in A Very British Scandal on BBC One, playing the Duchess of Argyll.

The duchess being famous for being quite so non-uxorious.

Or is John Harris really Rodney Trotter who got attacked by a hipster beard?

Employees at Netflix halted work on Wednesday and staged a protest outside the company’s Los Gatos, California, headquarters to condemn the streaming platform’s handling of complaints against Dave Chappelle’s new special.

The actions – which hundreds participated in – are the latest in a string of highly visible organizing efforts in the tech sector, as workers increasingly take their grievances about company policies and decisions public.

“Three years ago, a worker walkout at a major tech company would have been unthinkable,” said Veena Dubal, a labor law professor at the University of California, Hastings. “White-collar workers across the world now understand their labor power, and their ability to change the unethical practices of their employer by withholding their labor.”

Some do get all hot and wet over the idea of labour power, don’t they?

Although it should be noted that they’ve not stopped the showing of Chappelle’s thing, have they?

Now they’re accusing him of racism and vile crimes in the workplace. An example of what is being complained about:

Sources from both seasons agree that Spottiswood sometimes agreed to remove or alter story elements they found problematic or offensive. But the sheer number of times they say that they had to raise red flags became exhausting. During one lengthy conversation about a proposed storyline in which a character on the show — a Black bailiff — was stopped by the police, sources recall Spottiswood wanting the character to be dressed like a suspect the police were looking for. Multiple sources remember explaining to him, at length, that American cops randomly stop men of color, especially Black men, all the time. Sources say Spottiswood found that hard to believe.

At one stage the episode in question contained a scene in which the character spoke about the incident with Lola, the series’ lead. A man of color at “All Rise” says that he was consulted about how that conversation might go, and that his input and that of other staffers were reflected on the page. But not long after that, Spottiswood, according to two sources, removed the dialogue from the scene. “Everybody’s like, ‘Where’d that really important conversation between those two Black characters go?'” says a source. “He said, ‘I took it out because they didn’t feel real. That’s not how those two characters would talk to each other in that moment.'”

It’s all a bit snowflake, isn’t it?

People actually doin’ stuff works though:

Homeless veterans have built their own houses under a charity scheme run by a special forces veteran.

Six previously homeless veterans have completed a self-build scheme of 19 affordable dwellings in Leominster, Herefordshire, and will be enjoying Christmas in their new homes.

Each veteran has secured a new house for themselves and their families through a partnership between the charity, Alabaré, Hereford Council and Stonewater, a housing association.

The remaining houses will be used by the local authority.

The first keys were handed over on December 17 to Dwain Lugg, a former soldier in the Rifles.

Mr Lugg, 30, who served for five years before leaving the army in 2012, said he lost his home when his marriage broke down.

He told the Telegraph that despite the current restrictions, his first Christmas with his sons Jacob, eight, and Matthew, two, will be “amazing”.

“Until now I’ve had no safe place to take them. No security.

“I’ve gained a home, which is more valuable than anything.

“To me this Christmas is going to be the best Christmas I could imagine.”

The building project has facilitated Mr Lugg’s qualification as a Site Supervisor. Through the charity Alabaré he also has a diploma in Construction Technology and has reskilled in plastering, tiling and painting.

For years I’ve vaguely thought about a TV programme. Easy enough to do as I’ve absolutely no idea at all of the details of either building or programme making. Take veterans like this. Train them up in building skills by actually going building. Presumably by building stuff – conversions for missing limbs, oldieying houses for aged veterans etc – for other veterans. Film it all. Cut to make fun programme.

Pay for the building work with the fees from the TV station.

Glad to see that someone else has actually thought properly about this sort of thing and is managing to get ‘er done.

That age thing about coppers looking young, judges. Rather worrying when a teenage drinking mukka is the old one on Strictly.

Sigh.

It was the other half of the Rubber Bishops I knew better but still….

It’s a normal experience to show up on set for a live show or scripted series and find, as Noel Clarke revealed this week he had, an all-white crew.

This won’t change while we have a government more interested in its invented culture war than in taking the steps needed to improve the industry. This is not a favour we are asking. As the increasing popularity of subscription channels such as Netflix shows, audiences given a choice between the status quo and fresh, diverse stories will vote with their feet.

Dowden could start by setting up a regulator that truly holds the industry to account for diversity and inclusion, something Ofcom – as Olusoga and so many other authoritative broadcasters have pointed out – has failed to do.

Without this kind of drastic action, there is nothing to suggest we won’t be having this exact same conversation again, 20 years from now.

Ghanian-Jewish TV presenter, commenting upon Nigerian-British TV presenter’s success at the peak of the profession, decries the racism inherent in the British TV system.

….post-watershed blackface, that operates under the guise of the comedy sketch show, found its own, horrid golden age in the early 00s. For many marginalised people, it was a truly cursed era of TV that not only mocked blackness, but dabbled in transphobia, fatphobia, misogyny, classism and ableism.

On a job site, looking for peeps to write about reality TV shows:

Sister Wives
My 600-lb Life
Kardashians
Real Housewives (all of them)
Teen Mom: Young & Pregnant
The Voice
Alaskan Bush People
AGT
American Idol
Say Yes to the Dress
Married to Medicine
Southern Charm
Jersey Shore
Siesta Key
Are You The One?
I am Jazz
Unexpected
Little Women
Hot & Heavy
My Big Fat Fabulous Life
Love & Hip Hop (all of them)
Vanderpump Rules
Shahs of Sunset
Flipping Out
The Masked Singer
Little People, Big World
Paranormal shows (Ghost Adventures, Kindred Spirits etc)
Dancing With the Stars
Temptation Island
Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen
Siesta Key
Growing Up Hip Hop
Marriage Boot Camp

Thassa a lotta cheap TB….

Your Reference CAS-5559392-PLH851

We are contacting you to apologise that we’ve not been able to reply to your complaint within the time period we aim for. We manage this for most complaints but regret it’s not always possible to achieve.

If you wish to refer this delay and the substance of your complaint to the BBC’s regulator Ofcom, you can do so online at https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/how-to-report-a-complaint/bbc-tv-channel-radio-station-bbciplayer or by post to: Ofcom, Riverside House, 2a Southwark Bridge Road, London SE1 9HA. Please include for Ofcom your latest correspondence from and to the BBC and any BBC case reference numbers which you have been given.

Full details of the BBC’s complaints process can be found by visiting http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle-complaint/,and full details of Ofcom’s complaints process are available at https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/information-for-industry/guidance/procedures.

In the meantime we appreciate your patience and will respond as soon as we can.

Kind regards

BBC Complaints Team
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

Alice Levine: I lived with a member of the Far Right for a week. Here’s what happened

“You’re condescending, I’m not. I have a healthy, happy marriage and a child. You do not. So don’t lecture me. To be honest with you, you’re slightly obnoxious as a human being. You’re the extremist.”

My heart was pounding as British Far Right activist Jack Sen unleashed this torrent of invective at me, jabbing a forefinger in the air for emphasis. It would have been unpleasant enough to be accosted like this in the street, but here I was standing in his living room, near the end of a week-long stay. I had a lump in my throat and just wanted to cry. The kind of hot tears you try to hold back, because they represent anger not upset. I didn’t want to be there any more.

The sort of British middle class woman who makes TV shows is condescending and obnoxious? Say it ain’t so!

CNN legal analyst Areva Martin accuses David Webb of ‘white privilege’ before learning he’s black

Increased US Oil Production Means Cheap Oil Ain’t So Good No More

Really:

Doctor Who stars have rejected claims that the show has become too PC, with one actor asking whether it is even possible to be ‘too’ correct.

Mandip Gill and Tosin Cole, who play Yaz and Ryan in the show, instead praised the programme in an interview with Radio Times for being an “entertaining reminder” of important issues.

Paul Mayhew-Archer: ‘I had to write Vicar of Dibley jokes to feed my family’

The cruelty of modern life, eh?

He has also worked as a script editor on shows including Mrs Brown’s Boys, Spitting Image and Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps.

Hmm, that last, well, torn between someone did write jokes for it and yes, OK, that’s real oppression.

Here.

That’s the niece not understanding Japanese. A niece perhaps.

The TV manufacturers are spreading the news of the Royal Wedding. With the offer that you can upgrade your TV to whatever today’s new lovely standard big screen is just in time to watch it.

We do have the historical story that people bought TVs to watch QE II’s wedding (or the Coronation?) and that this was one of the kick starts of adoption in the UK.

So a mild thought. How much of the current pushing of the current standards for the current event is going to work and how much of it is some folk memory of that historical tale?

The hero is Nick Griffin, right? Who do they get to play him?

Staff at Basel zoo are carrying out a paternity test after the birth of an orangutan with any one of three potential fathers.

Be a step up from Jeremy Vine’s normal guests.

This is very good though:

Sumatran orangutans are one of the most endangered animal species in the world, comprising only nine existing populations left in the wild, with just three populations numbering 1,000 or more.

Known as “gardeners of the forest”, they have a major role in rain forest seed dispersal and in maintaining the health of the forest ecosystem, a function that is vital for a range of other animals, including tigers, Asian elephants and Sumatran rhinos.

Despite the development of protected areas, more than 50 per cent of orangutans are found in forests under management by timber, palm oil and mining companies.

So, err, they’re perfectly happy in managed as opposed to unmanaged forest then?

In short, here’s what happened. As part of his segment on debt collectors, Oliver formed his own debt-collection company. Through that company, he then bought just under $15 million in medical debt — the debt of about 9,000 people — for $60,000. Once that debt had been bought, Oliver forgave it. Then, in a moment of self-adulation, he showered the stage with dollar bills as a symbol of his good act.

OK, it’s an intern at National Review writing this so details, details.

But if it was a company forgiving that debt than those whose debt was forgiven owe taxes on that debt forgiveness.

If it were a charity or an individual making a charitable act then they don’t. But corporations are assumed, unless otherwise detailed, to be operating for profit. And a for profit organisation forgiving debt is income to the debtor who gains that forgiveness. And taxable income too.

I do hope that Oliver got this the right way around.

Update: Apparently he donated it to a charity that then forgave it. So, settled then.