Words Dept.

What is green custard? As far as I can see it’s a vaguely remembered school dinner treat, which, before today, rated about three mentions on the whole of the internet

For some reason I got annoyed about the ITV ad break during injury time goal mess-up last night although in retrospect I’m not sure why. It actually spared me the horror of seeing Everton score. Everyone has surely suspected for a while that ITV was going to do something like that. Everything about its footy coverage is [...]

As Jonathan Ross returns to our screens later, both ITV and the BBC’s flagship current affairs programmes have scheduled timely and hard-hitting investigations into the issue of very rich famous people saying “he fucked your grand-daughter” and stuff. ITV’s timely attempt to tackle to hard-hitting subject, part of the Tonight strand, was on earlier and [...]

Ofcom has ruled that an advert about the congestion charge shown on ITV earlier this month directed viewers to a website that “contained material that was almost exclusively in support of the congestion charge” and, as such, broke the Television Advertising Code rules on political impartiality. You might think this is quite a serious indictment. [...]

BSkyB discovered a fun way of reporting its “mixed” half-year financial results today. The broadcaster, which announced a £112m net loss because of its pigheaded decision in 2006 to purchase a 17.9% stake in ITV at an hysterically overblown price just to stop Virgin Media doing the same, simply commandeered the business update on Sky [...]

I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! was beaten for the first time in the ratings on Friday… by Children in Need. It’s baffling that up to 8.7m people are tuning in to watch what must be the least inspiring selection of jungle D-listers yet. But the fact that, at its peak, 10.9m were [...]

Apparently, 112 people complained to Ofcom that Sir Trevor McDonald’s jokey description of Bernard Manning as a “fat, white bastard” was “inappropriate and/or racist”. On News Knight with Sir Trevor McDonald on 24 June, Sir Trev said: “It’s time for Racist and Dead, this week, it’s the turn of corpulent, narrow-minded northerner Bernard Manning. Personally, [...]

I’ve noticed that almost all TV producers are now frantically admitting to faking bits of reality shows lest one of the tabloids rumbles them first. The latest is one Simon Cowell (never heard of him), who says he staged a bit of the new series of X-Factor. Apparently, a scene where Cowell discusses rehiring Louis [...]

Why is it that both the UK’s main network broadcasters are tonight televising the final of a talent contest where the winner gets to be in a West End musical? Is it some kind of sick prank? How did one channel work out that the other’s Grease final would be held on the same Saturday [...]