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Olympics
2008 - Opening Ceremony
The BBC will provide live coverage of the opening ceremony of
the XXIX Olympiad at the Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing at 12:45 BST on
Friday, August 8.
Sue Barker and Huw Edwards
introduce the parade of teams and the formal opening of The Games.
Hazel Irvine and Carrie Gracie
also provide the commentary.
Live coverage of the whole
ceremony can also be seen on the BBC's HD channel.
23:44
July
17 2008 - waveguide.co.uk
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Wild At Heart
Monarch Of The Glen actress Dawn Steele is joining the cast
of the ITV drama Wild At Heart.
The Scottish actress is currently filming on location in South Africa with
the stars of the drama, Stephen Tompkinson and Lucy-Jo Hudson, who are both
returning for the fourth series.
Steele will play feisty vet Alice Collins, who has been working as a locum
in South Africa with her young daughter Charlotte. Stephen's character Danny
Trevanion needs a new vet to work alongside him in the busy animal hospital,
but gradually realises he's taken on more than he bargained for in Alice.
Juliet Mills also joins the cast as Georgina, who is sent to take care of Du
Plessis while her sister Caroline, played by Hayley Mills, remains in the UK
with her granddaughter.
23:33
July
17 2008 - waveguide.co.uk
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Ofcom
Chief Says Licence Should Go Down
Ofcom chairman Lord David Currie said today the government
could lower the television licence fee in 2013.
The BBC is receiving £800million of licence fee money to pay for the costs
of digital switchover.
By 2013 when the switchover process will be complete and the analogue signal
turned off money will no longer be needed for that purpose, Lord Currie
said.
A new licence fee settlement is due in 2013, and if the licence fee is set
at current levels there could result in a surplus, he suggested.
Lord Currie said that the corporation could be forced to share some of its
licence fee with other broadcasters if there was any extra cash.
He said: "From 2013, switchover will have been completed and the annual
expenditure that the £800 million funded will no longer be incurred.
"There is thus a switchover surplus. government and parliament have three
choices at that stage.
"They could reduce the pounds and pence figure in the 2013 statutory order -
in effect giving the surplus back to every household in Britain through a
lower licence fee.
"They could put the money into the BBC's baseline for the BBC to spend as it
sees fit for example on new BBC services.
"They could apply it to another purpose, including the funding of public
service content by other organisations."
He also questioned whether the licence fee provided a 'unique link' with
viewers and the BBC.
According to research, 80 per think the licence fee funds TV programmes on
BBC One and BBC Two alone, he said.
"For now the 'unique link' appears to be more an article of faith than an
evidenced reality," he added.
22:20
July
17 2008 - waveguide.co.uk
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The Hits To
Rebrand As 4Music
Channel 4 and Bauer Media are to rebrand music channel The
Hits as 4Music.
The channel will be available from August 15 on Sky
channel 360, Virgin channel 330 and Freeview channel 18 and will begin with
exclusive live coverage of the V Festival.
It will also screen Bestival in September and music-led
volunteering programme Orange RockCorps that climaxes with a concert of
diverse acts at The Royal Albert Hall.
The channel will also screen original series and entertainment programmes,
plus an eclectic mix of new and classic video content.
Series on 4Music will include Live from Abbey Road and 4Music Presents. It
will also see the return of Vodafone TBA plus first runs of popular
programmes such as T-Mobile Transmission and Ibiza Rocks with Sony Ericsson.
19:00
July
17 2008 - waveguide.co.uk
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U-Boat Drama For BBC
Two
British writer Alan Bleasdale is returning to the BBC with
Laconia, a new two-part drama for BBC Two based on factual accounts of the
attack and sinking of RMS Laconia in September 1942.
Produced by Talkback Thames 180-minute drama will explore the human side of
the story, which later became known as "The Laconia Incident".
At 22:00 on September 12, 1942, German U-Boat U-156 torpedoed and sunk the
armed British vessel RMS Laconia.
Believing he had scored one of the greatest military coups of maritime
warfare in the Second World War, Lt Commander Werner Hartenstein acted
beyond the call of duty – and against orders from the Nazi high command – in
undertaking a daring rescue operation when he discovered the ship he had
just sunk was in fact carrying large numbers of civilians and thousands of
Italian prisoners-of-war.
The events which followed saw Hartenstein put out a personal plea for
assistance in shepherding Laconia survivors – be they British, Italian or
Polish – towards safety.
Cramming 200 individuals onto the top of his surface-level submarine, and
draping his gun-decks with Red Cross flags, the story takes a second tragic
twist when they were spotted and mistaken for duplicitous enemy subs by US
Lieutenant James D Harden's B-24 Liberator bomber.
Given the order to "sink subs" from his superior, Lt Harden's subsequent
actions put many original survivors of the Laconia sinking back in peril.
Jane Tranter, Controller, BBC Fiction, said: "Laconia is a powerful and
compelling story and we're delighted to be bringing it to BBC Two, along
with the esteemed storytelling talents of Alan Bleasdale."
Alan Bleasdale said: "This is an astonishing tale of bravery, humanity,
warmth and near madness in the face of facism and the cruelty of war. There
have been nightmares along the way but every writer must dream of being
given a story such as this."
Laconia will start filming in Autumn 2008 in Germany and Malta for
transmission on BBC Two in 2009.
10:52
July
17 2008 - waveguide.co.uk
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Soaps
Criticised For Stereotyping
EastEnders and Coronation Street have been accused of
stereotyping ethnic minorities in a report.
Shows including the BBC's Vicar Of Dibley and Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
on ITV were also criticised in the publication on minorities on the small
screen.
It found that US imports have more credible representations of minorities,
with viewers praising shows such as Heroes, Lost, ER and even the Simpsons.
Older British programmes like the sitcom Desmond's were also received well,
with the report concluding that broadcasters may have produced more
specialist ethnic programmes in the past than they do now.
Talent shows such as the X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing and reality
programmes like The Apprentice and Who Do You Think You Are? got the
thumbs-up from minority viewers.
News and current affairs programmes like Dispatches and Panorama, and
long-running dramas such as The Bill, Casualty and Holby City were also
praised.
But Hollyoaks, Emmerdale and Australian soaps such as Home and Away were
picked out for having no virtually no ethnic minority characters.
Viewers cited Asian corner shop owner Dev in Coronation Street and black
single mother Denise, who had two children by two different fathers in
EastEnders, as examples of stereotyping and tokenism in soaps.
The report was commissioned by Channel 4 following the furore over the
allegedly racist abuse of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty on Celebrity Big
Brother.
09:48
July
17 2008 - waveguide.co.uk
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Big Cat Live
Cameras are to be installed by the BBC across Kenya's Masai
Mara reserve for a live multimedia project following lions, cheetahs and
leopards for BBC One.
Billed as one of its most ambitious live events, Big Cat Live will feature
three weeks of live video streaming this autumn from webcams in the reserve
on bbc.co.uk, a week of live programmes on BBC One and a spin-off series
CBeebies.
Kate Silverton and local Masai guide Jackson Looseyia will join Big Cat
Diary's Simon King and Jonathan Scott camping next to the Mara River, where
they will be surrounded by wildlife.
By day, the team will follow the fortunes of lion, cheetah and leopard
families, while nightly transmissions will bring live images of the reserve
using specially designed remote cameras capable of showing action in the
dark.
"Big Cat Live is the BBC's most ambitious ever live international wildlife
event," the Natural History Unit head, Neil Nightingale, said.
"Audiences will be transported into the heart of wild Africa to experience
the action in one of the world's most dramatic wildlife location, as it
happens," Nightingale added.
The project's executive producer, Sara Ford, said: "To bring the show live
to BBC One, we are aiming for nothing less than 24-hour surveillance throughout
the Masai Mara on a number of different platforms.
"For the first time we invite the audience to feel part of the Big Cat
operation as we share with them the logistics and field-craft required to
launch such a bold live project."
08:05
July
17 2008 - waveguide.co.uk
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