Tim Worstall

Jurors were told Pritchard presented and starred in a show called Dirty Sanchez.
There’s a TV show called “Dirty Sanchez”?
I assume that means something different in the UK than it does the US?

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A terminally-ill volunteer is being sought to donate their body for a reality television show backed by Channel 4 that would see them mummified and possibly placed on display in a museum.
No, not that, I’m sure there are weirder shows in development.
This:
Fulcrum is not offering any payment for the project, other than to meet costs. [...]

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Teenagers are being ignored by television programme makers, according to Phil Redmond, the creator of Grange Hill.
Statements of the bloody obvious.
As you’re now not allowed to advertise anything interesting (KFC, McDonalds, the sorts of things that teenagers might indeed spend their own discretionary money upon) to teenagers then there’s no money to make programmes aimed [...]

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Hey, lefties, boycott away.
You are, after all, only making your preferences known by the way that you spend your money. You know, that market shtick thing, the thing which we froth-mouthed righties insist we should all enjoy all the time.
Maybe you’d like to return the favour sometime? You know, let us make our preferences known [...]

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Clarkson, who previously had to apologise to Gordon Brown in February after calling him “a one-eyed Scottish idiot”, described him as a “cunt” in not-for-broadcast comments during the recording of this week’s Top Gear programme on Wednesday night.
Isn’t the BBC supposed to be a reflection of the myriad opinions and communities of Britain? Clarkson was [...]

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I dunno, dunno:
It was courageous of Selina Scott to sue Five for age discrimination last year: they asked her to cover Natasha Kaplinsky’s maternity leave and then picked a younger model. Scott won, hurrah for her, and this week she delivered an angry diatribe about the [...]

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Surprisingly good actually:
Last, and possibly best, the ultimate reality channel: TONTINE TV (not to be confused with the reality show that has drifted in and out of development over the last couple of years). As originally conceived over 300 years ago, a tontine was an investment scheme, but I see it as a supercontest. Tontine [...]

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And make the country happier.
Academics found happy people socialise more, read more newspapers and have more sex – but watch less television.
Those who are unhappy watch up to 30 per cent more television than happy people, John Robinson and Steven Martin of the University of Maryland discovered.
There’s the usual academic quibbling about correlation and causation, [...]

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The research found that the new channel pulled in more than double the projected audience of 250,000, finding that 15 per cent of the Scottish population tuned into the station in the week following its launch on September 19.
One in four Highlands and Islands viewers tuned on over the first week.
The figures were seen as [...]

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One of those strange PR spam attempts that arrive in email boxes every day. About some reality TV show. 

After successfully working with Janice last season, Andrew Christian goes to meet with Janice as he is [...]

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Sadly, it’s only the TV show being sold.

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…last week a cameraman arrived at the London to record a video clip of Ramsay for the Emmy Awards. “The guy said to me, ‘Can you be angry?’” Ramsay recalled wistfully. “I said: ‘No, I can’t, f*** off’.”

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With Carol Vorderman’s departure from Countdown a sign that the bubble has burst, the BBC will presumably be telling its own presenters to take a 90 per cent pay cut or go searching for another job. That will mean Jonathan Ross’s yearly earnings falling to £600,000 a year, Graham Norton’s to £250,000 and Jeremy Paxman’s [...]

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Whether product placement should be allowed in TV shows or not. Hmm, difficult question.

…ministers are consulting on whether to implement part of a European directive, which would allow product placement in the UK from as early as 2010.
Under the proposals advertisers would be able to pay to have products [...]

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A review.

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None of this modern nonsense on the TV screens:

If the BBC was hoping its new drama about England’s courts and prisons would ruffle a few wigs, the corporation can indulge in a leisurely moment of self-congratulation. Criminal Justice, which charts one young man’s journey through the prison system, has provoked a terse exchange between the [...]

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Speccie.
Wow, incentives matter and the licensing of estate agents.
If you’ll excuse me, this summer lurgy thing is sufficiently bad (a horrible hacking cough plus what feels like a bad port hangover but I haven’t been drinking) that I need to go for my morning nap.

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No, I didn’t know this.
All South Park episodes are now available for free online.
Here.

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Now here’s a truly inventive use of the Channel Islands and no, it’s got nothing at all to do with tax.
The loophole allows ITV programmes to be registered for compliance purposes with a tiny franchise, Channel Television, based in Jersey and Guernsey.
About 40% of ITV shows – mostly made by independent production companies – are [...]

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Now, I wonder if I can interest Bravo in "When Celebrity Parachutes Go Wrong"?…

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