English Entertainment
ABC’s new show ‘The Evidence’ puts a twist to the standard police drama
MUMBAI: People lie. The Evidence doesn’t. US broadcaster ABC has announced that it will launch this new show that puts a twist on the standard police procedural drama.
At the start of each episode, all of the clues (a locket, a phone, a severed finger) are revealed in a videotaped evidence log. The show then flashes to the day the crime was committed and invites viewers to play along with the heroes as they find each clue, determine its meaning, put the pieces of the puzzle together and figure out who done it.
No one knows the importance of evidence more than the lead character Inspector Sean Cole. After he lost his wife in a brutal murder, the only evidence the cops had was accidentally destroyed, and it ruined his faith in the system. Fortunately his partner and best friend, Bishop, is there for him, pulling him back to work, pushing him forward, as they both try to solve these complex cases set against the streets of San Francisco.
The show stars Oscar winner Martin Landau Ed Wood and Nicky Katt. In total ABC’s 2005-2006 fall schedule will have 12 new series. Oscar winner Geena Davis Thelma And Louise will try her hand on the small screen with Commander-in-Chief. She plays Mackenzie Allen has a lot on her plate. She has twin teenagers and a six-year-old at home, an ambitious husband at the office, and she is about to become the first female President of the US.
Before that happens, however, Mackenzie, who serves as VP has to decide whether or not to go against the dying wishes of the current President, who has asked her to step down and let someone “more appropriate” fill his shoes in the Oval Office. Not only does the President want her to resign, so does the entire party that elected her in the first place.
Actor Freddie Prinze Jr gets to star in the comedy Freddie. Four women to every man are great odds when you’re a single guy out on the town, but not ideal when it comes to your living situation. Freddie is a young, successful chef with his own restaurant, a stylish bachelor pad and a trust fund baby for a best friend. The world should be Freddie’s oyster at this stage in life, but bachelorhood isn’t working out exactly as he envisioned.
Freddie loved growing up in a house full of women. He loved the energy of everyone running around, loved cooking for them all, but now
He is finally starting to realise why his father used to lock himself in the bathroom just for some peace and quiet. Still, Freddie believes family always comes first, which is why he insisted his sister, sister-in-law, niece and grandmother come live with him after his brother passed away. Slowly but surely they are taking over his domain, and voicing their many opinions about his love life. Freddie will have to learn to balance his role as provider, brother, grandson and uncle, all while trying to enjoy what should be his swinging single days.
UK: The aerial is losing its grip. As broadband becomes the default way Britons watch television, the UK is edging towards a decisive, and divisive, question: should Freeview be switched off by 2034? The issue, highlighted in reporting by The Guardian, has exposed deep fault lines over access, affordability and the future of public service broadcasting.
For nearly 25 years, Freeview has delivered free-to-air television from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to almost every corner of the country. Even now, it remains the UK’s largest TV platform, used in more than 16m homes and on around 10m main household sets. Yet the same broadcasters that built it are now pressing for its closure within eight years.
Their case rests on a structural shift in viewing. Smart TVs, superfast broadband and the Netflix-led streaming boom have pulled audiences online. Advertising economics have followed. By 2034, the number of homes using Freeview as their main TV set is forecast to fall from a peak of almost 12m in 2012 to fewer than 2m, making digital terrestrial television, or DTT, increasingly costly to sustain.
But critics say the rush to switch off risks abandoning those least able, or least willing, to move online.
“I don’t want to be choosing apps and making new accounts,” says Lynette, 80, from Kent. “It is time-consuming and irritating trying to work out where I want to be, to remember the sequence of clicks, with hieroglyphics instead of words. If I make a mistake I have to start again.”
Lynette is among nearly 100,000 people who have signed a “save Freeview” petition launched by campaign group Silver Voices. She fears the government is about to “take [Freeview] away from me and others who either don’t like, can’t afford, or can’t use online versions”.
Official figures underline the fault lines. A report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that by 2035, 1.8m homes will still depend on Freeview. Ofcom’s analysis shows those households are more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and based in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Freeview is owned by the public service broadcasters through Everyone TV, which also operates Freesat and the newer streaming platform Freely. After two years of review, DCMS is expected to set out its position soon, drawing on three options proposed by Ofcom: a costly upgrade of Freeview’s ageing technology; maintaining a bare-bones service with only core PSB channels; or a full switch-off during the 2030s.
The broadcasters have rallied behind the third option. They argue that 2034 is the logical cut-off, when transmission contracts with network operator Arqiva expire. By then, they say, the cost of broadcasting to a dwindling audience will far outweigh the returns from TV advertising.
Ofcom agrees a crunch point is approaching. In July, the regulator warned of a “tipping point” within the next few years, after which it will no longer be commercially viable for broadcasters to carry the costs of DTT.
Others see risks beyond economics. Questions remain over whether internet TV can reliably deliver emergency broadcasts, such as the daily Covid updates, in the way that universally available DTT can. The UK radio industry has also warned that an internet-only future for TV could push up distribution costs and force some radio stations off air if PSBs no longer share Arqiva’s mast network.
“It is a political hot potato,” says Dennis Reed, founder of Silver Voices, who says he has “dissociated” his organisation from the government’s stakeholder forum, which he believes is “heavily biased” towards streaming.
The Future TV Taskforce, representing the PSBs, counters that moving online could “close the digital divide once and for all”. “We want to be able to plan to ensure that no one is left behind,” a spokesperson says, adding that rising DTT costs could otherwise mean cuts to programme budgets.
The numbers show the scale of the challenge. Of the 1.8m Freeview-dependent homes projected for 2035, around 1.1m are expected to have broadband but not use it for TV. The remaining 700,000 are forecast to lack a broadband connection altogether.
Veterans of the analogue switch-off, completed in 2012 after 76 years, recall similar fears of “TV blackout chaos”. Around 6 per cent of households were labelled “digital refuseniks”, yet a targeted help scheme and a national campaign, fronted by a robot called Digit Al voiced by Matt Lucas, delivered a largely smooth transition.
This time, the BBC is less keen to foot the bill. Tim Davie, the outgoing director general, has said the corporation should not fund a comparable support programme for a Freeview switch-off.
Research for Sky by Oliver & Ohlbaum suggests that with early awareness campaigns and digital inclusion measures, only about 330,000 households would ultimately need hands-on help ahead of a 2034 shutdown.
Meanwhile, viewing habits continue to fragment. Audience body Barb says 7 per cent of UK households no longer own a TV set, choosing to watch on other devices. In December, YouTube overtook the BBC’s combined channels in total UK viewing across TVs, smartphones and tablets, albeit measured at a minimum of three minutes.
That shift may accelerate. YouTube has recently blocked Barb and its partner Kantar from accessing viewing session data, limiting transparency just as online platforms consolidate power.
“When the government chose British Satellite Broadcasting as the ‘winner’ in satellite TV it was Rupert Murdoch’s Sky instead that came out on top,” says a senior TV executive quoted by The Guardian. “There already is such an outsider ready to be the winner in the transition to internet TV; it is YouTube.”
Freeview’s future now hangs on a familiar British dilemma: modernise fast and risk exclusion, or protect universality and pay the price. Either way, the aerial’s days as king of the living room look numbered.
