BBC presenter responds to criticism of describing Israeli attacks on Palestinians as ‘murders’ in question to David Cameron

Nick Robinson has said he “should have been clearer” when describing Israeli attacks in Gaza as “murders”, and that his words did not represent his or the BBC’s view.

The veteran broadcaster faced criticism for his choice of language during an interview with the foreign secretary, David Cameron, on the UK’s position after Iran’s attack on Israel over the weekend.

Continue reading...

Simon King says he had just two minutes to run between studios, including up flight of stairs

A BBC weather presenter who suffered shortness of breath during a live broadcast has reassured listeners he was merely suffering the effects of running up a flight of stairs on his way to the studio.

Simon King said he had received messages from worried members of the public, but told them there was no health scare – he had just been running late for the live broadcast.

Continue reading...

The boss of the broadcast regulator has expressed concern about how the chase for audience ratings is harming the industry

Television has become more “exploitative and cruel”, according to Michael Grade , the chair of the broadcasting regulator, Ofcom.

“The exploitation dial has been switched up more and more for ratings,” said the peer and former chair of the BBC board. “It makes me mad. I really don’t like it or enjoy it.

Continue reading...

Actor in Disney+ series Andor will appear onscreen alongside Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson next year

Varada Sethu will join Doctor Who as one of the Doctor’s two companions for Ncuti Gatwa’s second series in the role, it has been confirmed.

She will appear onscreen in 2025, alongside the former Coronation Street actor Millie Gibson after speculation over her character Ruby Sunday’s future on the sci-fi show.

Continue reading...

Broadcaster condemns justice ministry’s move against employee Ilya Barabanov, as well as Russian science journalist Asya Kazantseva. What we know on day 780

• See all our Russia-Ukraine war coverage

Continue reading...

Decision to set-up independent Collective Newsroom comes after BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai were raided by tax authorities in 2023

The BBC will split its operations in India into two separate companies, after raids by India’s tax authorities last year.

The BBC announced that it was forming an independent, Indian-owned company called the Collective Newsroom, which would produce content for the corporation’s six regional channels which broadcast in Indian languages including Hindi and Punjabi.

Continue reading...

This BBC Scottish crime series gives a lot, very quietly. A decade late, I have happily jumped on the bandwagon/slow-moving local ferry

Shetland is a mild, full-hearted police procedural – “like a cross between Wallander and Midsomer Murders”, Sarah Dempster wrote in the Guardian in 2013 – and set mainly on that Scottish archipelago – “permanently dark, plagued by murder and with residents who communicate only by glaring”, Filipa Jodelka wrote the year after. It is anchored, at least for the first seven seasons, by DI Jimmy Perez – “a TV copper of rare nuance”, Jack Seale wrote last year , “with no gimmick apart from the steady erosion of his will”. It could be said that over the last 10 years, this series has had more than its fair share of coverage on this site. Then again, it’s really good.

Perez is played by Douglas Henshall, in a determinedly consistent wardrobe of jeans, knitted jumper and peacoat (Barbour jacket on special occasions). He solves murders. These evolve from one-offs involving birdwatchers and inheritances in the early seasons to multi-episode conspiracies and corruption exposés with higher and higher stakes. Fishing is usually involved.

Continue reading...

Are these acclaimed dramatisations just drama or a way to process recent, seismic events? The viewer never quite knows

When Prince Andrew appeared on Newsnight in November 2019, he dispelled any lingering doubt in the notion that truth is stranger than fiction.

If you can recall – and let’s be honest, who can forget? – the Duke of York made a series of startling claims when called on to address his close ties with Jeffrey Epstein, among them that retaining a relationship with the convicted child sex offender was “ the right thing to do ”. There was also the alibi that hinged on a children’s party at Pizza Express in Woking and his lack of ability, at the time, to sweat.

Continue reading...

Emily Maitlis’s interview was unmissable limo-crash television, but Gillian Anderson’s Maggie Thatcher-lite performance and an underused Rufus Sewell add little

Here is a laboriously acted and distinctly self-admiring, self-mythologising drama about the media, the royals and the media royals. It is all about Emily Maitlis’s 2019 BBC Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew , challenging him about being friends with sex trafficker and abuser Jeffrey Epstein. The prince’s performance was so grotesquely embarrassing that he had to forgo his royal titles and “step back” from public duties , an achievement much emphasised over the closing credits, but about which audiences may now have mixed feelings, given that he is still, after all, known as Prince Andrew and still unrepentantly prominent on royal occasions.

Rufus Sewell in heavy prosthetic makeup plays the pompous HRH, a puffy-faced babyish poltroon whose smug smile is that of someone accustomed to having his every lame or boorish joke greeted with gales of laughter, and every boneheaded observation rewarded with a solemn courtier’s nod. But that normally estimable performer Gillian Anderson goes into a peculiar Maggie Thatcher-lite mode to play Maitlis – all gimlet-eyed forensic alertness and unrelaxed eccentricity as she brings her dog into the office.

Continue reading...