26 Feb 09 Wendy Richard Dead at 65
Wendy Richard, whose UK Television career spanned many years, but was best known for her role as Pauline Fowler in BBC’s Eastenders, has died, this morning at the age of 65.
She was in the BBC sit-com The Newcomers from 1965 to 1969, but is more well known for her part in ‘Are You Being Served’ the 1970′s UK sitcom in which she played Miss Shirley Brahms.
She also appeared in two of the famous “Carry On’ comedies.
In 2000 she was appointed an MBE.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer in the 1990′s and again in 2002, and she died at the Harley Street Clinic, with her husband at her bedside, where she was being treated, once again, for breast cancer.
Tags: bbc, brahms, breast cancer, comedies, eastenders, fowler, harley street clinic, miss shirley, newcomers, pauline, television career, uk sitcom, uk television, wendy richard
12 Oct 08 This Green & Pleasant Land
A 25-year-old man walking home from a night out died in hospital after being hit when two stolen cars collided and crashed into flats in Bedford, in England
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/7665812.stm
Tags: bbc, beds, cars, England, news bbc co uk, old man, stm, walking home
21 Aug 08 Broadcasting vs Streaming
So the Olympics was watched on TV by around 92% of viewers, and if you look at the total minutes watched agaisnt minutes streamed online it’s over 99% (source TV Week)
I suspect that these are probably similar for most types of video material.
I know that I’m very atypical when it comes to TV. I almost exclusively obtain my news and worldly information from the Internet, with a much smaller amount from broadcast radio (mostly BBC World Service). Then again, I watch very little TV. Period.
Of course, producing TV programming isn’t cheap. Someone somewhere has to pay for it, and mostly its supported by advertising. What I do find strange is that although many people will complain about advertisements on web sites, or blogs, such as this one, they’ll quite happily watch an hour-long show, that is interrupted without warning every 7-8 minutes by intrusive annoying commercials that can’t be skipped, and most often bear no relation to the content of the programming! For me, aside from having a great difficulty of finding content that I find interesting and engaging, viewing is spoiled for me by those ads.
I can watch shows from a service like Joost or Hulu, and while there are commericials they’re much less obtrusive, more contextual, and much less frequent than network TV.
Of course, another great advantage of online services such as those I mentioned above is the ‘on-demand’ model. I’ve already said I watch little TV, but if I did, I want it to be my slave and not my master. I don’t need to mess around with VCR, DVR, Tivo or anything else with Joost for example. I can watch what I want, when I want.
Tags: advertisements, annoying commercials, bbc, bbc world, bbc world service, broadcast radio, demand model, dvr, hulu, Joost, little tv, network tv, olympics, tivo, tv programming, tv week, vcr, video material
