Did anyone see the Guardian’s feature on the top 50 TV dramas of all time? Some classic old shows to help get through these wintry evenings if you can find them on DVD, but some controversial choices and a clear pro British bias me thinks (or maybe Americans have only learnt how to make good drama in the past 10 years) .

The top ten were:

1. The Sopranos 
2. Brideshead Revisited 
3. Our Friends in The North
4. Mad Men
5. A Very Peculiar Practice
6 .Talking Heads
7. The Singing Detective
8. Oranges are Not The Only Fruit
9.  State of Play
10. Boys From The Blackstuff

So 8 Brits and 2 from the U.S. Can’t argue with no 1,3, and 10, all of which were outstanding. But surely Hill Street Blues and The Wire should be in the top 10?

So official product placement is soon to with us.. Any thoughts on what the impact will be? Will the investment lead to better quality programming and therefore help lift overall TV spend? Or do we think we will see a downturn in standard spot advertising as advertisers move towards more contextual advertising? Or, do we think that most advertisers will be sceptical about the returns/value of such placement?

Last’s nights brilliant, albeit easy, 6-0 performance by England against Andorra pulled in 9.7 million viewers at peak time. TV viewing figures perhaps somewhat higher than predicted due to those with Wembley tickets being forced to watch from home. All this down to the RMT union leading strike action on the tube.

As we all know, the city becomes somewhat paralysed when any transport is affected, and apparently the potential collective loss to London’s business’ caused by this strike could be as much as £100 million. Who knows how much of a loss Wembley stadium made last night!

However, I think there is a good point to take from all this chaos and that is that it may have alerted the commuters and Londoners that we could save collectively, millions if we were to seek alternative modes of transport to our places of work.

I was personally baffled at the sheer number of people walking the streets last night as usually they are hidden away underground and watching the riverboats cruise by, busier than ever with commuters precariously perching on deck due to the lack of seats inside.
I read about someone considering riding their horse into town and many using scooters – the foot powered variety to get to work and personally having spotted two children hitching a ride on the back of, what I hope was, their Grandmas mobility scooter, it made me wonder how many ingenious modes of transport were actually thought up yesterday?

Whether you struggled to get to Wembley to see England thrash the Andorrans or whether you were just trying to go about your normal day, how have you been transporting yourself during the strikes?

First broadcast in the United Kingdom in 1964, the Granada Television series Seven Up!, broadcast interviews with a dozen ordinary seven-year olds from a broad cross section of society and inquired about their reactions to everyday life. Every seven years, a film documented the life of the same individuals in the intervening years. The series was structured simply as a series of interviews with no plot. However, it did have the then-new effect of turning ordinary people into celebrities.

45 years later, reality tv is a global phenomenon and most of our current celebrities have either started their career, furthered their career or ended their career as a reality tv star. The thing that baffles me is WHY anyone would NOW subject themselves to entering a reality tv show knowing that it has become a platform to show abuse, racism, bullying, homophobia, prejudice, tears, tantrums, sickness and even dying – don’t we have enough of that in our “real” worlds!

Big Brother returns this week for it 10th cycle with what I can only presume will be another set of contestants so eager for fame that they will literally make themselves hated by millions of people to get it. And is it their fault – no – it is ours. I guarantee that none of use will watch BB hoping that the contestants just sit around and laugh and chat and have lovely philosophical conversations about happiness and life. We will watch it to see who fights who, who lies the most, who is the most obnoxious and who will cause the most friction. We, the viewers have shown in our ratings figures that we are hungry for the really nasty aspects of reality, and the contestants know that. They know that they will get notoriety but at a price. That price is for them to become our personal hate figure, and they would prefer to be a disliked ‘someone’ rather than just a “no-one.”

What I want to know is who is still going to watch it or who, like me, has decided that they like no-one’s better than someone’s?

I’m a sociable kind of girl, I like my parties, I like my drinks and I love to have fun so it shocked me more than anyone when I found myself over this bank holiday with no plans from Saturday morning through to Monday night.

None.

Could I really go through one of the most popular long, work free weekends without drinking in the sun, dancing until 3am and waking up each day with a hangover?

Well, I did and it felt marvellous!!!

I cleaned, I sunbathed, I pampered, I slept, I woke early and made gourmet style breakfasts, it was bliss.

Most of all, I caught up on my favourite thing in the whole world – TV.

I watched hours and hours of the stuff;

Saturday Kitchen (someone swore on air and it added to the excitement of the omelette challenge)
House series 4 – ALL of it (the new series is starting next weekend)
The Wire – My language now contains so much profanity that I should come with an 18 cert
Home and Away omnibus – yes, people do still watch it.
Hollyoaks omnibus – so much tragedy for one small town
Britain’s Next Top Model – Is it wrong to want the recovering anorexic to win – Go Jade!
Behind Bars; The Story of women serial killers – Aileen Wournos; serial killer, or misunderstood hooker, I am yet to decide

I’m a changed women. I have realised that staying in is the new going out. “What about your friends?” you may scream at me, but I simply found new, better friends - 

Mr. Wide screen TV
Miss. Sky Plus
Sir. DVD player.

Who’s with me? Who’s going to say boo to boozy nights and yah to box sets, omnibuses and documentaries?

As I write this a group of my colleagues are huddled around a computer laughing out loud – but for once instead of watching someone fall flat on their face they are enjoying the new T-Mobile ad. On what is apparently the most depressing day of the year (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7836941.stm) the sight of hundreds of people getting down at Liverpool St station on a dull Thursday January morning is enough to cheer anyone up.

 For those who haven’t seen the ad it involves Liverpool St Station, hidden cameras, a booming musical montage (from hip hop to ballroom) and people who originally appear to be ordinary commuters gradually joining in to form one big gyrating dance troupe.

This stands out from other ‘live’ ads such as Honda’s Sky Dive as this time it doesn’t simply appear to be about showing off technique but actually engages audiences – both at the time and when shown on TV. Real commuters are fascinated and many start to join in with the dancing, or film on their cameras which, at the end of the day, is the whole point of the ‘life’s for sharing’ message.

Yes I know the flashmob thing has been done before before I think this brings a fresh take to the idea – and if nothing else it cheers up the most official most miserable day of the year. Check it out below and let me know what you think.

 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mUZrrbgCdYc

Having seen that Celebrity Big Brother pulled in 6 million viewers for the live launch and in excess of 3 million viewers for each episode since, I began to wonder who on earth are the people watching.
I thought that surely everybody would be by now, tired and bored of the whole concept of viewing so-called celebrities but apparently not.

To be fair they have put (and I expect payed a hell of a lot of money for) a few pretty decent characters in the house this year.
Heat radio updates me every hour of every day on who has done what, and who said what to who so I’m beginning to think even I, a reality TV hater, could perhaps tune in to see what all the fuss is about.

From what I’ve heard, Coolio has come across as the most interesting person, if only for his “nasty nick” characteristics. All the talk of who he has offended and made cry seems like it could actually be quite fun to watch! (cue evil laugh!)

Has anyone been watching? Any hilarious stories from the house? Is Coolio wrecking the show?

Hey Guys, wanted to take a minute and bring to your attention the launch of a newly designed TV advert that played live yesterday evening. 

The advertiser is Nokia 7610, and the aim is to get people from watching the TV Ad to, switch to watching the complete drama online, Web 2.0. The Ad is set to run in 10 different languages, with a constant feed of content.  

The TV spot introduces three characters Anna, Jade and Luca, starting with intrigue about one of them having listened to another’s voicemail and sets the scene for how their lives might unfold.  Fans will be able to learn everything about the characters through their text messages, photos, videos and calls on somebodyelsesphone.com, as well as signing up to their Facebook pages to have a more personal conversation.
The micro-site is supported by mobile content, interactive partnerships, widgets, Facebook pages, banner ads and a number of events in association with partners including Parisian boutique Colette.

This to me has always been what TV adverts should have been doing, using all platforms available to them, engaging their viewers with an initial taster of what is yet to come and grabbing viewers initial interest. Running a story across platforms, all areas of the mediums, and making sure that the rest of the story is available in full form online, building the buzz and most powerful ‘word of mouth’ on the street or maybe in the office. That then spurs unified action. To watch, engage and then hopefully react. With the end result, creating a loyal fan base, mini episodes of watchable content, that everyone is talking about?

Take the old Nescafe, BT couple, Daz  (that really is giving true meaning to the word Soap Opera) … building up traffic across all platforms, and showing TV is still a very powerful medium, in getting user numbers online, and then once there using a consortium of viral tools to engage the user more.

Anyways let’s see how successful this advert format is with the public… To be continued….

When Sky One brought back Gladiators this summer my first thought was “Amazing! Hot men in lycra. What’s not to love?”
Unsuprisingly the updated version failed to live up to expectations. (Rubbish presenters, too modern, no sign of Rhino anywhere)
Why was I interested in the return of this programme?
Well, as a child I wasn’t allowed to watch Gladiators and had to resort to sneaking in episodes at friends houses (It was deemed too ‘common’, as were burgers, monster munch, pot noodles and shell suits, to my utter disappointment) which elevated the programme to unattainable levels of glamour and excitement.

Which is why the anticipated return of The Krypton Factor to ITV makes me nervous because I desperately don’t want to be let down again!
Date yet to be confirmed, ITV is to bring back The Krypton Factor in its biggest ad-funded programming deal. The series ended in 1995 after an 18 year run and was dubbed “television’s toughest quizshow”. ITV said “The Krypton Factor will be given a 21st century makeover that will see the stakes become bigger, the competition harder and the pressure higher”.

Auditions are open now if any one fancies the challenge……

http://www.itv.com/Games/Gameshows/TheKryptonFactor/ApplicationForm/default.html

Flicking through my freeview box the other day I must of instantly dismissed watching at least 6 comedy shows, from the torturous ‘My Family’ to smug American sitcoms. Where is the fresh, exciting new comedy out there? Why am I forced to watch old classic DVD’s such as the genius of Chris Morris in Brass Eye and The Day Today over and over again?

There is some fantastic comedy out there if you look hard enough, but not enough. It seems when it comes to the mainstream, the BBC 1’s or ITV’s of this world would rather play it safe, leaving me to trawl through More 4 or BBC 3 & 4 to find some hidden gems.

Basically, what i’m trying to say is………………does anyone have any new comedy to recommend that I may of missed out on?