English Entertainment
‘This Is Us’ nears fruition on Star World Premiere HD
MUMBAI: If the season, right since its inception has been any indication, viewers must start emotionally preparing for what is about to be a heartwarming yet tear-jerking finale on audience favorite and critically acclaimed TV show -This Is Us. The show will air on Star World Premiere HD on 18 March at 10 pm.
The family drama, starring a stellar ensemble cast comprising of Mandy Moore, Milo Ventimiglia, Justin Hartley, Sterling K Brown, Chrissy Metz among othersis one of the biggest hits of 2016 and has managed to captivate a huge fan basein a very short period of time from the show’s very first episode.
Having started off in a pleasant place where a pregnant Rebecca is seducing her husband before her water breaks and rapidly progressing to a place where Rebecca is in pain for losing one of her newborn triplets, audiences understood the bittersweet dynamics of the show that would continue to haunt them long after the episode is over. Now, so close to its grand ending, viewers are expecting the episode to close some of the most important questions that they have rattled their minds over all season long! How did Jack die? How did Miguel and Rebecca come about to be? Why does Kate hold herself responsible for her father’s death? Will Kevin and Sophie finally get back together?
During last week’s penultimate episode, the timeline moved back and forth with the Pearson family celebrating William’s life in the present and Rebecca leaving home to go to Cleveland on-tour with her band, in the past. The official synopsis, now, for the finale episode states: In the first-season finale, Jack heads to Cleveland to make things right with Rebecca on the night of her first big gig with the band. Then, Randall, Kate and Kevin make big decisions about their futures.
“We’re going to destroy America by the end of the season,” Moore divulged in a statement last week around the finale, “As if they don’t have enough to be upset about at this point in time, anyway,” she added.
With Jack taking the command over the steering wheel, very drunk, in the last episode and the synopsis revealing that he in fact heads to Cleveland; will this be the end for Jack?
Ventimiglia, the man who plays Jack, wants the fans to at least brace for the possibility that this maybe the defining moment of the season, “People want to know what happens with Jack. This may be the time when they find out.”
The series has already been renewed for the second and third season, so will the loose ends be taken forward to the next seasons? Or will we gain closure this season and wait for another heavy weight season, filled with other reveals from the Pearson family?
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.
