Tim Worstall

Or at least, that’s the end of any kiddies stuff that doesn’t come from the BBC: Advertising aimed at under-11s should be banned amid fears it is creating a generation of children obsessed with money and material possessions, a powerful lobby of more than 50 experts warns today. Wonder if they’ve thought that through: or [...]

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The BBC has apologised after screening a repeat of a children’s television programme featuring a character dressed as Jimmy Savile. An episode of The Tweenies filmed in 2001 was shown on CBeebies before 9am on Sunday. In the episode, a character called Max presents a Top of the Pops-style show. Wearing one of Savile’s trademark [...]

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Women of a “certain age and appearance” struggle to be seen on television, former newsreader Alice Arnold has suggested, as she criticises a culture valuing the “shape of their legs” over their intellect. Arnold, the partner of sports presenter Clare Balding, said equality was a “constant struggle” in a world which “prizes looks and youth [...]

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Yet there is a basic injustice that we have allowed to take hold in our public life and that is the removal of older women from it regardless of whether they have relevant life experience or expertise. Sigh. It is necessary, as the phrase goes, to look at this in the whole. A pleasant looking [...]

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My word! Mick Aston quits Time Team after producers hire former model co-presenter Mick Aston, the archeologist, has quit Time Team after producers hired a former model as the programme’s co-presenter. So, toothsome bimbo to get her nipples out for the lads. Kown as the Dimmock Strategy. Woo Hoo! And I can see why a [...]

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Re the BBC and Sky, here. But here’s a tidy sum the BBC could recoup for us all. The Murdoch press has relentlessly lobbied to cut the BBC back to a US-style small subscription service for unprofitable programmes. Now, while Murdoch is weakened, is the chance for the BBC to regain lost ground. Here’s the [...]

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Leone, whose real name is Karen Malhotra, has been appearing in Bigg Boss, the Indian version of Big Brother, where a group of minor celebrities spend months in a house cut off from the world, vying for publicity and a cash prize. It’s now necessary to explain what Big Brother is. O Tempora, O Mores [...]

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I should make a declaration of interest here: I have taken Press TV’s shilling. Did a few pieces with them when I was working in London. So, that said: If the clerical state bought British newspapers or set up websites, I would not call for regulators to compel them to be accurate and impartial, and [...]

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Traditionally, kids entertainment groups have made just 10% of their income from broadcast commissions, with the balance generated by DVD and merchandise sales. Many companies have been squeezed by the global decline in DVD sales, while increasingly broadcasters expect to pay nothing for children’s television shows commissioned from outside rights holders. While Entertainment One has [...]

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Al says his Current TV is being forced off Sky Italia because he’s hiring Keith Olbermann in the US. Sly says that Current TV wanted more money for the fewer viewers it was delivering. A News Corp spokesman said: “The non-renewal of Current TV’s carriage agreement with Sky Italia is purely commercial. Current TV asked [...]

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So there’s this bird who reads the local news and she’s about to get married: Yankee announcer Michael Kay is a real meathead. And now that local TV anchor Jodi Applegate is about to marry him, she’s desperately trying to figure out how to please a man wedded to only three foods: steak, bacon, and [...]

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Selina Scott: Why I believe the BBC is guilty of blatant ageism and sexism Well, yes. OK. It exists. However, such complaints would work rather better if they weren’t coming from women who were clearly and obviously swiftly promoted in the first place because they were appealing eye candy. Yes, the totty gets on camera [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 “ageist BBC”, which had given Arlene Phillips 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. [...]

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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 [...]

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