English Entertainment
Pitch breaks barriers on Jimmy Kimmel Live
MUMBAI: We live in times when women are known to be fearless, powerful, intelligent and raring to go. It would not be wrong to state that women today are closer to achieving their dreams, no matter how impossible they may seem, than ever before. Be it the creative or corporate world, there is no industry where women haven’t made their mark. Arts, literature, finance, media, F&B and even sports, there are names of women that shine through in each field. The recent Olympics saw women shine through, winning India accolades with their talent, hard work and admirable skills. However, while success comex their way, it cannot be said that their triumphs are not without struggles. From facing sexism to gender-based doubts about their capability to threats to their general safety – women across the globe still fight battles to be accepted and seen as equals in a number of situations.
The second episode of brand new television series Pitch which premiered on Star World and Star World HD last week, showcases some of the very real struggles women today face inspite of their talent and capabilities. Pitch the story of a young pitcher, Ginny Baker, who becomes the first woman to play Major League Baseball for the San Diego Padres. But proving her mettle in a man’s game is not the only challenges young Ginnay has to face. From proving her worth to being accepted in the team as an equal to facing misogyny not only by her teammates but even her coach, Ginny has her work cut out for her. The second episode of the show, ‘The Interim’ delves deeper into Ginny’s struggles as she tries to establish herself as a baseball player and not just a pretty face.
The episode sees the team manager Al face flak for a video, shot a few years before, in which he talks about then AA-League player Ginny and how her beauty means that a lot of his guys would welcome her in the locker room – a sexist comment that simply waves off Ginny’s talent as a player. The episode has Ginny addressing this issue on her appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! where instead of taking part in a comedy bit about decorating the clubhouse called “Ginny Baker, Redecoraker”, she uses her time on the show to publicly support Al, calling him a good man, and to comment on a sports-related rape case that’s been in the news. “We don’t need to make sure every girl goes in the right room, we need to make sure that every boy knows it’s wrong to rape,” she says – A strong statement indeed in times when the number of rape cases and cases of violence against women seem to be skyrocketing.
Talking about the episode, co-creator Rick Singer said, “Jimmy couldn’t have been more amazing. We worked a little bit with him in terms of crafting how the scene was going to unfold, but within that we just sort of established that at the top of the scene they were just going to naturally speak to one another. A lot of that banter up top was improv’d. Jimmy was just interviewing Ginny Baker and Kylie was answering as Ginny Baker and it’s very natural and really interesting. Then, they sort of delve into the scene, but it was really fun. We also knew it was her first appearance on a nighttime talk show like this. So we knew that there were going to be these natural nerves on her part that were going to completely work for the scene and work for the character because it’s Ginny’s first appearance as well.”
He further added, “I have to give enormous credit to Kylie because we did this during a Jimmy Kimmel Live taping. They had an extended commercial break, but we had one take. We did that in one take and Kylie just absolutely nailed it. We were sitting there in the green room and all just on pins and needles because we knew there was no margin for error and it just came off perfectly. The actual words themselves were written by Dan Fogelman and that’s never a bad thing. It was really well done. I think we are really able to straddle that line without getting too preachy, but making a very valid point and the fact that all of these stories that get nationalized and become about other things when they’re really very simple stories about the fact that victims get blamed all the time, things get politicized. When it really just comes down to it, she says it’s just a question of right and wrong. I think Dan wrote the scene beautifully and Kylie delivered it. Delivering it on Kimmel in that way, it really came alive with that live studio audience reacting spontaneously. The audience had no idea what the content was. They had no idea what the context was. Ultimately, what they ended up hearing was this speech and it’s just a natural response once they figured out what the scene is about and what she was saying.”
Pitch airs on the channel every Tuesday 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.
