Yesterday today

As the next UKTV channel succumbs to a jaunty rebrand (UKTV History becoming Yesterday), Dominic Small is back with another examination of multichannel fortunes.

This time he’s looking at why networks continually tinker with their onscreen identities – from UK Living, to Living, to LivingTV, back to Living… and beyond. Read the story »

Oh, and does anyone know why the lowercase ‘e’ in YeSTERDAY?

Wendy Richard tribute programme

The BBC will screen a tribute to the late Wendy Richard this evening. Read more

Human nurture

The BBC has announced Being Human has been recommissioned. Read more

“Do I play woofter?”

Last week, Kate Richardson nabbed Countdown infamy with a dodgy seven-letter word. Read more

Gimme Five USA

Today’s the day Five rebrands its American themed channel. Formerly named Five US, it’s now called – umm – Five USA.

Okay, a perfunctory tweak at best, but it does now bring the branding into line with the rest of the Five network. To mark the occasion, Dominic Small looks back at Five’s digital fortunes thus far. Read the story »

The long con

The BBC has confirmed Hustle will return for a sixth series in 2010. Read more

Triffids sprouts a cast

The BBC has announced its impressive cast list for The Day of the Triffids. Read more

Who’s hosting Comic Relief

David Tennant will be hosting the first hour of Comic Relief Night it’s been revealed today. Read more

New Charlie Brooker TV review show

Charlie Brooker will be recording a new TV review show on Friday, 30 January. Read more

Red again

UKTV has released more details about Red Dwarf’s upcoming return. Read more

New beat for The Bill

ITV has announced its twice-weekly cop show is to drop to one episode and get a new slot. Read more

“To the North…”

“…Where we do what we want”.

It’s hard to remember the last time C4 put so much weight behind one of its dramas. Red Riding, adapted from the novels of David Peace, tells the story of policing in Yorkshire through the 1970s and early ’80s. The trilogy was unveiled to the press tonight via a lowkey press launch in Shoreditch, East London.

C4′s Head of Drama, Liza Marshall, unveiled a selection of clips from each episode (which are set in 1974, 1980 and 1983 respectively), commenting that a production like this is  reason enough the channel should be helped out of its current financial crisis. Read more

Tony Hart, RIP

The month continues to take many TV greats. This morning it was announced Tony Hart had passed away peacefully in his sleep at the age of 83.

A television pioneer, it’s worth remembering how far back his association with the media goes. His first role was as artist in residence on Saturday Special in 1952. Last year, he told the Times how he got the job… Read more

Hustle

“What do we need in a mark?” asks Mickey, rhetorically. “Greed.” Read more

Indies competition now closed

Our competition to win Ian Potter’s impressive book: The Rise and Rise of the Independents: A Television History (read more about it here) is now closed.

Thanks to everyone who entered. Our winners are:

Anthony Babajee, David McNay and Stuart Adair.

They all got it right, but how did you get on with our question?

It was… What connects BBC1′s Satan-baiting drama Apparitions with C4′s Chester-set soap, Hollyoaks?

The answer is, both shows are Lime Pictures productions. The clue was in the question…

Trisha – axed

As you may have spotted from our news feed – Five has axed Trisha. Read more

Countdown

Countdown returns on Monday, C4, with its all-new presenting team – Jeff Stelling (“Stelling is the name -  six consonants, two vowels”) at the desk, and the very smiley Rachel Riley wrangling the letters and numbers.

We’ll have a full review from our Countdown correspondent Ian Jones, but – briefly – how’s the relaunched show looking? Read more

So good?

Five has announced who’s singing the new Minder theme tune. Read more

Completing the circle

A blog post of interest to few follows… Read more

Matt Smith is the new Doctor Who!

Matt Smith has been announced as the 11th Doctor.

The Party Animals and Ruby in the Smoke star (set to appear in upcoming BBC2 crime drama Moses Jones) was an outside chance with all pundits, until earlier today, when his name suddenly propelled itself through the ranks of potential Time Lords. 

So how did Doctor Who Confidential announce the casting? Slowly… Read more

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