English Entertainment
Star World continues to innovate with dramas and comedies
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MUMBAI: Star World continues its attempts at bringing in the best from the west. Next month it will launch two dramas Medical Investigation and Ghost Hunters. |
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However, the medical situation is only part of the problem as their public relations officer simultaneously attempts to control to prevent public panic and complicate things still more. In an entertaining way the show tries to remind viewers that one cannot be complacent about any disease. The teams hunt down the source of the epidemic and concocts an antidote. It stars Neal McDonough, Kelli Williams and Fans of the X-Files may dig Ghost Hunters which deals with the paranormal. Two plumbers are also the co-founders of The Atlantic Paranormal Society (Taps). This is a paranormal research team which investigates hauntings and other strange occurrences. The show which was dubbed a docu-soap by the Sci-Fi Channel in the US follows their investigations from first contact through the gathering of evidence, and to the reveal of that evidence to the client.  Every week the team investigates a new case, from poltergeists who throw a child’s toys around an attic to a lighthouse whose late keeper still welcomes visitors. Meanwhile, those intersted in extraterrestrial activity can check out a two hour special which will air next month on the channel. Seeing Is Believing with ABC News’ Peter Jennings takes a fresh look at the UFO phenomenon. Jennings says, “As a journalist I began this project with a healthy dose of skepticism and as open a mind as possible. After almost 150 interviews with scientists, investigators and with many of those who claim to have witnessed unidentified flying objects, there are important questions that have not been completely answered — and a great deal not fully explained.” |
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Besides drama the other important genre for Star World is comedy. It will launch the comedy Nighty Night this month. This show from the BBC stable will air every Saturday at 10 pm from 24 September 2005. It is a dark comedy/drama series and centres on Jill who is the co-owner of a suburban beauty salon. She has other things on her mind, though, namely the handsome doctor who lives in the house opposite with his wife, a wheelchair user. Jill claims that her hospitalised husband is dying of a terminal illness and so descends on the life of the unfortunate couple… and refuses to leave.
It will also air the comedy 8 Simple Rules for dating My Teenage daughter. This was the last show that the late comedian John Ritter Three’s Company was involved with. When it starts it deals with a father dealt with Ritter who has rules regarding his eldest daughter’s dating habits. Every suitor is scrutinised. What is interesting is that the show wove Ritters death into the script. After his death which happens several episodes down the line it becomes a time for healing and learning to deal with life without the family patriarch. The Hennessy family discovers the frailties of life and the strength of the family unit. Cate (Katey Sagal) now finds herself in the precarious position of raising three teenagers on her own while holding down a full time job as a hospital nurse near their Detroit-area home. She does, however, get a little relief, thanks to her father, Jim (James Garner), who’s been staying at the house since the death of Ritters’ character. Retired and separated from his wife, Jim mostly spends his days making home improvements to the house — with arguably mixed results — and, in his own inimitable way, gives comfort and guidance to his daughter and grandchildren during their time of need. But the family is thrown for a loop when Cate’s wayward nephew, C.J. (David Spade), moves in and finds it hard to resist getting himself into trouble or offering questionable advice to the kids. Now more than ever, Cate needs to be there for her kids — particularly her daughters. Oldest daughter Bridget (Kaley Cuoco) has matured into a beautiful and popular teenager — especially with the boys. |
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Medical Investigation deals with an elite team of medical investigators from the National Institute of Health in the US. They deal with disease outbreaks. The team led by Dr. Stephen Connor get on different cases to get to the bottom of the danger anywhere in the US.
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.
