UK TV

An archive of blog entries about UK TV programmes and production.

ITV3: the network that doesn’t like to advertise

10 November 2005 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

ITV3 has been around for some time, mainly in the guise of Granada Plus before it got rebranded. It now has another relative, ITV4, which is supposed to be a “man’s channel”, showing American imports among other things.

Good theory. So why is it that all the good American imports are on ITV3? You wouldn’t know they were there because there’s no advertising. Yet, Numb3rs debuted on there a few weeks ago, as did Touching Evil (the US version). What does ITV4 have? The re-make of Kojak, which was so bad I stopped watching after ten minutes.

Sure ITV3 is essentially still the home of Poirot repeats, but they should think about moving over the new US imports to ITV4 if they’re not going to waste them.

£120m for Friends Reunited

8 November 2005 Rob Buckley Post a comment

ITV, apparently having decided its output is so high quality it can waste money on dotcom acquisitions, has decided to spend £120 million on Friends Reunited. Nutters.
Does anyone really bother with Friends Reunited any more? I haven’t updated my entry in a year. Neither has anyone else at any of the schools, clubs, workplaces, etc that I went to. The bulletin boards aren’t clogged up with people chatting. None of the people who failed to sign up when it was at its peak have had a change of heart recently.
It’s dead. It’s so 2001-2003.
If ITV really has that much money to throw around, perhaps it might like to spend more on decent programming and its ITN contract so that the latter’s journalists can afford to eat food for a change.

Gordon Ramsay’s manly recipes

5 November 2005 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

I’ve signed up for tickets for The F Word, Gordon Ramsay’s cooking and chat show. Unlike the BBC’s tickets request service, this required filling out about a dozen questions, including “Favourite Chef” (Gordon, of course), “Favourite meal ever had” (Bradley Ogden’s at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. That was some tasty food) and profession (see how well “Freelance journalist” goes down).

Continue reading “Gordon Ramsay’s manly recipes”

No Geena Davies for More4

21 October 2005 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

One last thing before I go. My suspicion that Commander in Chief was going to end up on More4 appears to have been incorrect. It seems that my general criticisms of the show appear to be shared with the buyers at Mip this year and the chances of the first female president of the United States appearing on UK TV are now quite slim. Shame that.