English Entertainment
Zee English to debut three new shows this summer
MUMBAI: After a lull period, Zee English is back again with summer bonanza, which includes three new shows. With rival English entertainment channel Star World seriously bolstering its programming line up, the Zee Group channel’s announcement of new shows comes at a good time.
Starting this month, Zee English will premiere three new shows Jack &Jill, Zoe II and Reasonable Doubts.
Besides the three new launches, the summer season will also mark the launch of new season and new episode of their three shows, Six Feet Under, ER and Norm II.
Zoe II is Zee’s answer to HBO’s much lauded show Sex and the City, and is also set in the city that never sleeps New York. It is about a candid young woman played by Selma Blair and her three loyal friends. The Big Apple serves as a colourful backdrop to all the idiosyncrasies for their lives after high school graduation. Touted as a wryly realistic comedy, the weekly sitcom kicks off on 23 April at 8:30 pm. Zoe premiered in the US in 1999.
Since season nine of the popular sitcom Friends wound up last month, the channel seemed to be biding its time till it got in a new sitcom. While the negotiations are rumoured to be on for 10th season, the channel has got another comedy Jack & Jill to fill the slot. Premiered in US in 1999-2000, the show that debuts on Indian shores on Friday 23 April 2004 at 9:00 pm, is about a couple. Jack “Jacqueline” (Amanda Peet- The whole nine yards) meets her guy Jill (Ivan Sergei- The opposite sex) and they fall in love. While their world change, they have many hurdles to jump on the way to love and that’s the story of Jack&Jill.
Having addressed both the comedy and romance genres in its new line-up, Zee English is also launching an action thriller Reasonable Doubt . The show, scheduled to launch on 22 April at 9 pm, is about a maverick cop Dicky Cobb (Harmon), who is raised by a deaf father. He finds himself suddenly and reluctantly working as investigator and interpreter for young, idealistic and hearing-impaired deputy district attorney Tess Kaufman (Matlin).
Although they are equally dedicated for stopping crime, Cobb’s aggressive, unconventional methods often clash with Tess’ by-the-book approach. But Tess’ boss, Arthur Gold (William Converse-Roberts), trust that Cobb’s unique combinations of talent will give Tess the assistance- and muscle- she needs. The series premiere in the US in 1991-1993).
Besides the new launches, the channel will air ER- IV- VII- the returning series on Wednesday 21 April 9 PM (new season + New episodes). It is a riveting dramatic series portrays the dedication and passion of emergency room of doctors and medical staff in Chicago teaching hospital. Development in the healer’s lives include a new baby; an emotional visit home, while Alex Kingston and Maria Bello have joined the cast.
While the new season of Six Feet Under will launch on Monday 19 April 9:00. The show is an intriguingly comic look at life and death from the perspective of dysfunctional family that owns and operates an independent funeral home in California .
Last on the list, Norm II, will debut on Saturday 24 April 8:00 PM Protagonist Norm Henderson (Norm Macdonald) is a a professional hockey player. His propensity to gamble without paying taxes leads to him being thrown out of hockey for life. Faced with the possibility of a life behind bars, Norm opts for community service as a social worker. Laurie (Laurie Metcalf) is Norm’s co-worker and best friend.
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.
