Doctor Who

• Nigel Havers to guest on The Sarah Jane Adventures

British TV

• Law and Order gets a second series
• FX picks up Eastbound & Down
• Hallmark UK to become Universal Channel?
• ITV turned down low-cost Primeval
• Freeview HD to launch in December
• BET HD added to Freesat
• BBC Worldwide co-producing Emma and Cranford sequel

• Jeri Ryan to recur on Leverage
• Joanna Garcia to recur on Gossip Girl

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Read other posts about: Gossip Girl, Primeval, The Sarah Jane Adventures

ITV is having problems. We all know that. It's share price is down the tubes, it's having to cut jobs, its ad revenues are in decline, it can't afford to do local news any more, its ratings are falling, it's even having to cancel Primeval.

It's having problems.

Over the last few days, I've been swanning around various people blogs (including Dan's and Joe's) and mailing lists, explaining to everyone who hates ITV - which is pretty much everyone - what its problems are and why they're not all its fault. I should have been doing proper work, I know, but all these years of trade journalism haven't been for nothing you know, and I do like the sound of my own typing.

Anyway, I thought I'd cobble together all the various postings, try to assemble them into some kind of coherent but occasionally self-contradictory mass, and let you muse on them - and argue the toss if necessary. Note, a lot of it's been off the top off my head, so don't quote me for truth or even accuracy on all the details: imagine them as broad sketch outlines of poor ITV's problems - and why it had to cancel Primeval.

Continue reading "The problems and dilemmas facing ITV"

Read other posts about: Primeval

Doctor Who

• Awe-inspiringly spoilery pictures from the finale

Film

• Producers having difficulty with Birds remake

Comics

• Captain America coming back

• The Nolans are reforming

British TV

• Travel Channel's Pat Younge to head up BBC Vision Productions
• ITV drops Primeval
• Reece Shearsmith talks about Psychoville
• Digital Britain report to cut £130m from BBC's share of licence fee
• It's the Torchwood press pack
• BBC2 and BBC4 to run Modern Beauty season

US TV

• Fox's fall shows to start the same time as everyone else's
• Sendil Ramamurthy to guest on Psych
• Steven Spielberg wants Noah Wyle to star in his alien invasion pilot for TNT

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Read other posts about: Heroes, Primeval, Torchwood

Awards

• Results of the Tony Awards

Film

• Ben Bova's Immortality Factor to be adapted
• Liam Neeson to play Hannibal, Bradley Cooper to play Face in The A-Team?
• Kirsten Dunst back for Spiderman 4

East European TV

• In Treatment to be remade in Romanian, Hungarian, Czech and Polish

British TV

• Channel 4 closing down download version of 4oD and putting all back catalogue up for streaming
• Primeval ends with 4.3m viewers
• Ashes to Ashes gets final series
• Press pack for moon season, which includes lots of James May
• Sir Alan wanted to hire both Kate and Yasmina but the producers wouldn't let him
• £25m fund needed to safeguard ITV Wales

Canadian/German TV

• Rufus Sewell, Ian McShane and Donald Sutherland to star in Pillars of the Earth

US TV

• Kathy Bates, Tim Curry and Colm Meaney to star in updating of Alice in Wonderland
• BSG's Katee Sackhoff to be a regular on 24
• My Name is Earl to continue on TBS?

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Read other posts about: 24, Ashes to Ashes, Battlestar Galactica, My Name is Earl, Primeval

Doctor Who

• Specials to air on BBC America
• BBC Films confirms work has started on a Who movie

Film

• Alien to be remade?
• Anchorman 2 close to happening
• Granada America becoming ITV Studios
• Seann William Scott and Adrian Brody join Kevin Smith's A Couple of Dicks
• Clip from Steve Coogan's What Goes Up
• Tom Cruise to star as secret agent in Wichita?

British TV

• More feasts for Heston
• ITV looking for digital partner to help make Primeval
• Press pack for BBC3's PA drama Personal Affairs

US TV

• Freddie Prinze Jr to be a regular on 24
• BBC to launch a kids channel
• John Lithgow joins Dexter
• Summer Glau to appear in Dollhouse [spoilers]

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Read other posts about: 24, Primeval

Doctor Who

• Claire Bloom to appear in specials as… [spoiler]?

Film

• Roger Rabbit: the sequel?
• Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
• Transformers 2 trailer
• Ricky Gervais's Flanimals to be turned into 3D movie
• Tell No One to be remade

British TV

• Five Life Fiver rebranding grows audience 24%
• Judge John Deed axed
• Primeval to be cancelled over costs?
• S4C to get less money because of inflation drop

US TV

• ABC Family cancels Roommates
• Adult Swim to show UK The Office
• Pics from the Gossip Girl spin-off

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Read other posts about: Gossip Girl, Primeval

Film

• Trailer for Angels and Demons
• Gemma Arterton to play Io in Clash of the Titans
• Rhys Ifans to appear in Harry Potter movie
• Kathy Bates joins Sandra Bullock on The Blind Side
• Tony Scott to direct Unstoppable
• Tobey Maguire to star in Grand Prix film The Limit?
• William Monahan to write historical naval drama The Essex

Theatre

• Christopher Eccleston and Gillian Anderson to star in A Doll's House

British TV

• The Mentalist gets 3.6m viewers
• Robin Hood beats Primeval in the ratings
• Monty Python team reuniting for 40th anniversary documentary

US TV

• ABC cuts back on In The Motherhood
• ABC orders seven episodes of Dragons' Den adaptation Shark Tank
• Casting on sitcom pilots
• Clips from ER's finale
• ABC in talks to join Hulu
• Whoopi Goldberg to appear in The Cleaner
• Lipstick Jungle definitely dead now

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Read other posts about: Primeval

Film

• Uma Thurman and Pierce Brosnan to voice Greek gods for Percy Jackson
• The new Three Stooges are (probably)… wait for it… Sean Penn, Jim Carrey and Benicio del Toro. Bet you were guessing that already, weren't you?
• Nicole Kidman joins new Woody Allen movie
• Universal adapting The Strange Adventures of HP Lovecraft
• Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz to star in Wichita and Trouble Man?

Theater

• David Mamet to make Broadway directing debut with Race

Canadian TV

• CBC to lay off 800 staff

French TV

• Sundance Channel coming to VoD and other channels

British TV

• Channel 4 unveils its spring/summer season
• Tracy Beaker returning as an adult
• Juliet Walters to play Mo Mowlam
• Charlie Brooker's You Have Been Watching picked up for series
• Parent company says Five needs to merge
• Tonightly cancelled but team working on new show
• Trailer for new series of Primeval

US TV

• 24 creator Joel Surnow trying to make mini-series about the Kennedys
• In Treatment's Josh Charles joins Good Wife
• Sarah Connor's Stephanie Jacobson joins Melrose Place
• Lost's Ian Somerhalder joins Vampire Diaries
• Donald Sutherland joins Eastmans
• NBC streaming on the rise
• Heroes ratings at all time low
• British TV shows joining Hulu

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Read other posts about: 24, Heroes, Lost, Primeval

Doctor Who

• Surprise return by someone for final special [spoiler]
• Invent aliens and film them for John Barrowman's talent show

Film

• Alex Proyas talks about The Tripods
• Coen brothers to remake True Grit
• The IT Crowd's Chris O'Dowd to be villain in Gulliver's Travels
• No, it's not a time paradox: Warren Beatty sued over Dick Tracy
• Terminator Salvation ending completely changed after plot leaks
• Giovanni Ribisi joins The Rum Diary

Theatre

• Judi Dench pulls out of Madame de Sade

British TV

• ITV1 goes mental with Primeval Web 2.0 promos
• Red Riding ends with 1.7m viewers
• SciFi acquires Knight Rider and Dollhouse
• Gordon Ramsay to travel round India, become vegetarian for Gordon's Great Escape
• BBC to increase web spending

US TV

• Lost's Elizabeth Mitchell signs up for V
• Heroes' Bryan Fuller wants to remake Star Trek
• BSG's Mary McDonnell guesting on The Closer
• Clip from SciFi's forthcoming Warehouse 13
• United States of Tara showrunner leaves
• Julia Ormond and Jeffrey Tambor among pilot castings…
• …as are Holt McCallany…
• …Christine Baranski and Chris Noth
• BSG ends with 2.4m viewers
• Roseanne Barr returning to primetime?
• Lost ratings dropping
• SciFi orders three mini-series, including updates of Alice in Wonderland and The Phantom, as well as an adaptation of the Riverworld series
• Hilary Duff to appear on Law and Order: SVU

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Read other posts about: Battlestar Galactica, Gordon Ramsay, Heroes, Lost, Primeval, The IT Crowd

Doctor Who

• Matt Smith worried about taking over from David Tennant…
• …isn't a fan…
• …wants to copy Tom Baker's style…
• …is already receiving fan mail…
• …thinks about it all the time
• Specials to be shot in HD, and K9 to appear in six episodes of the next series of The Sarah Jane Adventures

Film

• Orlando Bloom, Vincent Cassel and Olga Kurylenko to star in The Cross
• Michael Gambon joins The Book of Eli
• Martin Campbell to direct Green Lantern?
• Amber Heard to star opposite Johnny Depp in Rum Diary
• New Dragonball Evolution trailer
• New Watchmen viral vid
• Extended clip of Clive Owen and Naomi Watts in The International

Theatre

• New Marilyn Monroe musical to play at the Apollo

British TV

• Ladies of Letters gets 938k viewers
• Competition Commission blocks Project Kangaroo
• BBC looking for Northern comedy writers

US TV

• Big Love gets a fourth season
• Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J to star in NCIS spin-off while Anna Friel has three pilots to pick from
• Interview with Josh Schwartz about Chuck…
• …and the Gossip Girl spin-off
• Kristen Bell asked to be written out of Heroes
• BBC America picks up Survivors, Being Human and Primeval series three

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Read other posts about: Being Human, Chuck, Gossip Girl, Heroes, Primeval, The Sarah Jane Adventures