English Entertainment
Gloss, grandeur and gaiety at the Emmy Awards
LOS ANGELES: What a day it was! The stars of American television descended in droves to Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium for the 55th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards.
The heat and suffocating humidity of the Los Angeles sun did not perturb any of them in the least as they walked the red carpet in their dampening Armanis, their Chanel suits sweat dripping from their foreheads, to the cheers and screams of the paparazzi and fans lining the sidewalk.
It was quite a circus with television crews from almost every network – Fox, ABC, E! – vying to get a leg up on the Emmys action. Fox, of course had the advantage, being a preferred broadcast partner. Every celebrity was greeted with ‘Oohs’ and ‘Aahs’ and photographers pleaded with the celebs to hold that pose for them.
Gubernatorial candidate and porn star, clad in a blue dress, Mary Carey more than obliged, actually lifting up and accentuating her ample bosom with her palms for the cameras which merrily clicked away.
Sarah Jessica Parker nominated for her part in Sex in The City was exactly the opposite. She downplayed herself, smiling and dignified with husband Mathew Broderick in tow. A roar went up as she walked down the carpet. Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox Arquette, Matthew Perry, Matt Leblanc, Kim Catarall, Stockard Channing, Jenifer Garner, Christina Applegate, Debra Messing met a similar reception.
Gary Coleman (remember “What you talking about” Arnold of Different Strokes) another gubernatorial candidate was more than willing to talk to the waiting journalists. The dwarf like Coleman smiled and preened himself even as his white companion clung on to his elbow.
The elderly Doris Roberts walked in almost unnoticed as did Micheal Chiklis, who plays detective Vic Mackey in The Shield. Wannabes strode close to the stars in a desperate bid to get pictured alongside them, even as the security consistently requested them to move in to the auditorium. But they stayed put. As the show flag off time neared they moved in to collect their Emmys souvenir. Some of them chose to pick up a $20 or $30 glass of their favourite poison, sipping away even as they craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the stars entering late in the lobby of the auditorium.
The female bar tender remarked, “While the Emmys score high amongst the awards ceremonies, it’s the Oscars which are unmatchable. I’ve been mixing drinks here for sometime and I know what I am saying.”
Gradually, the crowd dissipated up in to their respective seats in the holy of holies. Producer Don Mischer counted down the start of the 55th Emmy Awards ceremony.
The show had its moments which were meant to shock: there was a takeoff of the Madonna Britney Spears kiss between actors Garry Shandling and Brad Garrett, Matthew Perry’s smooch with the elderly Emmy winner Dorris Roberts, the standing ovation to Walter Cronkite, the moment’s silence to the late Fred Rogers, Bob Hope and Three’s Company star John Ritter, Martin Short’s eulogy to the losers, Ellen DeGeneres monologue, and of course George Lopez’s standup and Darrell Hammond with his imitation of Arnold Schwarznegger.
The show ended with all the winners coming on stage for a finale. However, the festivities continued at the Governors Ball in the Shrine, with chocolates by Ethel M being given away along with chocolate cigars, and a lobster dinner prepared by world renowned Patina chef Joachim Splichal, all at between $600 and $1000 a pop.
The theme of the Governors Ball this year was “Club 55 at the Cocoanut Grove.”
This year’s theme was “Club 55 at Cocoanut Grove”,” inspired by the legendary Ambassador Hotel nightclub. Of course elsewhere in the city, the HBO, Fox, West Wing, TV Guide parties kept the winners and nominees up through the night and up till the next morning.
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.
