TV

Black British TV makers are “fighting over scraps” because of the lack of opportunities, industry figures have said, arguing that conditions are worse now than before the Black Lives Matter movement that emerged in 2020.

The Guardian spoke to Black British executives, producers, directors and writers who said their industry had not fundamentally changed after the racial reckoning that was triggered after George Floyd’s murder in the US five years ago.

Andy Mundy-Castle, the founder of the indie company DocHearts, who won a Bafta and a Royal Television Society award in 2024 for the documentary White Nanny, Black Child, said despite critical acclaim it was as difficult as ever to get commissions.

“You are so far removed from the top of the food chain that you just get the scraps … we aren’t given the biggest opportunities,” he said. “I’ve been noisy and stubborn enough not to go away but there are so many people who have just said, ‘Fuck this. We’re leaving’.”

Ofcom uses these findings to assign language to one of three categories: mild, moderate and strong.

Words that fall into the first category are considered unlikely to trouble audiences, while moderate language has a greater potential for offence. Words ranked “strong” are perceived to be highly offensive and require a “clear and strong contextual justification for broadcast”.

Rather than acting as an outright censor, Ofcom gives guidance on how broadcasters should approach language then leaves them to make the decisions. If audiences are unhappy, they are entitled to complain to the regulator, as on occasion they have.

We’ll not make the law clear. It’ll be vague. But you can still be punished if some Party Member complains!

Criticisms that Doctor Who has become too “woke” prove the series is doing the right thing by being inclusive, its new star Varada Sethu has said.

People who have to face market pressures – consumer desires – don;t say such stupid things. One of the values of market pressures….

Sir Keir Starmer claims the BBC has backed him over the inheritance tax raid on farmers, prompting accusations of bias.

Why should anyone care whether a news service backs a policy or not? Even, how come we’ve even the concept that the BBC has a political view?

Tht it’s considered obvious that is does have a view, a political view, is the very reason to close it down.

Anglo-Saxons will be played by a diverse cast in a new BBC historical drama about the Battle of Hastings.

The eight-part series King and Conqueror will tell the story of Harold and William’s epoch-defining struggle for the throne of England in 1066.

Some Anglo-Saxon characters, including a real 11th-century leader, will be played by a diverse set of actors.

So when Zulu is remade there will be a nicely speckled set of warriors? Any slave drama will include a few whities out in the fields, a few of darker tint weilding whips I assume?

Oh Good.

We write the TV, radio and theatre shows you love. Do you want robots and AI doing that job?
Lisa Holdsworth

Next question?

But then no one ever accused South Park of subtlety:

The red-headed prince and his wife, who wears a white hat and pink off-the-shoulder dress similar to the outfit worn by the Duchess of Sussex to Trooping the Colour in 2018, are shown publishing a book, appearing on TV for interviews and embarking on a worldwide “we want privacy” tour.

When we moved to the US from Russia I warned my wife that American TV was going to seem extremely bland. They just didn’t do anything cutting at all – stodge. Pretty people maybe but don’t look for grand satires or anything. So, of course, we sat down one evening for a drink and a bit of TV as we were settling in and the first show we watched was one of the first series of South Park.

My reputation as a cultural analyst took some time to recover from that.

Three military personnel were killed after Ukrainian forces launched a drone attack on an airfield for strategic nuclear bombers hundreds of miles inside Russian territory, the Kremlin has claimed.

A doorbell camera at Engels airbase near Saratov, almost 400 miles from the Ukrainian border,

The knowledge of the event comes from a doorbell camera……..

“It’s just this perennial problem that comedy is bound to have in the atmosphere that we have now, which is to be kind. The culture is to be nice to people, which sounds great and in principle is something I would support, but in practice, every joke has a victim. That’s what a joke is.”

‘What’s the appeal of Bridgerton?”

That’s my flat on the right there. Out acting me and most of the cast…..

Disney has censored “overtly gay affection” from its Pixar films, according to company employees who said that storylines and characters were edited out by nervous executives.

A letter from “the LGBTQIA+ Employees of Pixar and Their Allies” criticised bosses at Disney, which bought Pixar in 2006.

Leave the specific issue aside for a moment. Disney is that top brand – the brand at the top that is. OK, so, one of the things the execs are supposed to do is carefully cultivate that brand. They may do this well or badly, that’s true. But cultivate it they should. And if their take is that overt gay affection isn’t on brand, well, that’s that.

The fault is not though in either the execs or even the brand. It’s in the audience that has that set of tastes the brand appeals to….

Hey, maybe being touchy about overt gay affection is well behind the American public curve. But then most folk are rather behind the curve when they make the distinction between what adults get up to and what is shown to children….

Channel 4 News faces questions over ‘gagging’ of female staff

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.