English Entertainment
This summer, laugh out loud
MUMBAI: Ever since it first started in India almost two years ago, Comedy Central India has grown to be identified with fun, comedy and laughter. From popular sitcoms to exclusive show launches, the channel brings to its viewers some of the funniest shows from across the world.
This May, viewers can brace themselves for an all new level of comedy with the launch of nine new shows on the channel. Shows like the Golden Globe Award winner Brooklyn Nine-Nine, the latest season of the globally acclaimed Suits and the extremely popular game series Wipe Out will be a part of the new line up.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a workplace comedy that deals with a diverse group of detectives who are at the very edge of New York City. After the success of airing three back-to-back series of the legal drama, Comedy Central now brings the final six episodes of the third season of Suits. The channel will also Wipe Out, the game show series where the world’s largest obstacle course will be witnessed in which will see contestants making their way through a giant obstacle course to win a cash price.
In addition to the latest seasons of the critically acclaimed The Mindy Project, Suits, Wipe Out and Citizen Kane, Comedy Central India will also premiere the 2014 reboot of the classic The Kumars at No. 42. The Kumars at No. 42 has seen two Indian adaptations viz., The Batliwalas’ at No. 43 and Comedy Nights with Kapil. Another reboot that will soon be seen on Comedy Central would be the 2013 revival of Whose Line Is It Anyway? with the same cast returning joined by Aisha Tyler hosting. Another sitcom that will soon be seen on Comedy Central would be Sean Saves the World, starring Sean Hayes, from the EMMY Award nominated writer of Better Off Ted. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart will also return to Comedy Central India with brand new episodes.
Commenting on the all new prime time line-up, Viacom18 Media English entertainment SVP & GM, Ferzad Palia, said that the channel’s objective has always been to bring fresh and funny content to viewers. “Since launch we’ve set out to expand our programming line-up year-on-year by bringing the most popular and globally renowned shows, be it contemporary or classics. This May, we bring viewers an award winning, all new Prime time line-up that is sure to engage both loyal & new audiences”, said Palia in a statement.
Hitting off the summer cool is Wipe Out weeknights at 9 pm, starting 5 May. It will be followed by the season premiere of Suits from Mondays to Wednesdays at 10 p.m. followed by Sean Saves the World at 11 pm and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart at 11:30. The Kumars revival will start on 8 May airing Thursdays at 10 p.m. The following day will witness the season premiere of Citizen Kane airing Fridays at 10 p.m. The Golden Globe Award winning comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine will make its Indian premiere on 19 May, airing Mondays to Wednesdays at 10 pm, followed immediately by the season premiere of The Mindy Project airing Mondays to Wednesdays 10:30 p.m. The 2013 revival of the improvisation comedy series, Whose Line Is It Anyway? will make its Indian premiere on 31 May airing Saturdays at 9 pm
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.
