Especially for you, dear blog reader, because yer actual Keith Telly Topping knows how much you all adore some good stats, here are the consolidated, final ratings for the Top Twenty Five programmes week-ending 4 November 2012:-
1 Downton Abbey - Sun ITV - 11.76m
2 Strictly Come Dancing - Sat BBC1 - 10.95m
3 Coronation Street - Mon ITV - 9.86m
4 The X Factor - Sun ITV - 9.49m
5 EastEnders - Mon BBC1 - 8.76m
6 Emmerdale - Mon ITV - 8.24m
7 New Tricks - Mon BBC1 - 7.96m
8 Countryfile - Sun BBC1 - 7.30m
9 Merlin - Sat BBC1 - 6.88m
10 Ten O'Clock News - Mon BBC1 - 6.19m
11 Antiques Roadshow - Sun BBC1 - 5.99m
12 Six O'Clock News - Tues BBC1 - 5.76m
13 Have I Got News For You - Fri BBC1 - 5.68m
14 BBC News - Sun BBC1 - 5.55m
15 Fifty Years of Bond Cars: A Top Gear Special - Mon BBC2/HD - 5.54m
16 The Paradise - Tues BBC1 - 5.30m
17 Casualty - Sat BBC1 - 5.03m
18 DCI Banks - Wed ITV - 4.96m*
19 Pointless Celebrities - Sat BBC1 - 4.86m
20 The Graham Norton Show - Fri BBC1 - 4.61m
21 The Pride of Britain Awards - Tues ITV - 4.59m*
22 All Star Mr & Mrs - Wed ITV - 4.54m*
23 The ONE Show - Tues BBC1 - 4.50m
24 Holby City - Tues BBC1 - 4.47m
25 Young Apprentice - Thurs BBC1 - 4.44m
Those programmes marked '*' do not include HD figures.
Britain's oldest acting extra, who appeared on Emmerdale for thirty eight years, has died at the age of one hundred. Lottie Goodwin appeared in scenes at the Woolpack pub and Cafe Hope until retiring in April 2011 aged ninety nine. The great-grandmother of thirteen died at a care home in Manchester, the Jewish Chronicle reports.
Goodwin also had walk-on parts in Coronation Street for thirty years, as well as spots in Channel Four soaps Brookside and Hollyoaks. Speaking in 2010, the same year she was brought into the public's attention, she reflected on her long career: 'I love the job and I want to go on forever. They say I'm the oldest extra in England, there's nobody else of my age still doing TV. My friends call me wonder woman and my daughters ask why I still do it, but I just love the job.' As well as soaps, Goodwin was also an extra on popular dramas including Brideshead Revisited, Lost Empires, Jewel in the Crown and Northern Lights.
Britain's Got Talent non-entity Amanda Holden has called for Wee Shughie McFee, the sour-faced Scottish chef off Crossroads to return to the UK and 'save' The X Factor following a series of declining ratings.
Speaking to the Digital Spy website, Holden admitted that her former boss is 'probably disappointed' with The X Factor's performance this year. 'I think that he's probably disappointed, but if he's got any sense he'll get on his white horse and he'll come charging back next year and save it,' she said. 'I think Simon should come back to the UK. I just miss him. I want him to come home.'
ITV has reported a six per cent fall in TV advertising revenues in the third quarter of 2012 as advertisers held back from spending while viewers tuned into the BBC's Olympic coverage. However, a rejuvenated ITV Studios is forecast to make profits of more than one hundred million quid this year. ITV took a battering during the third quarter thanks to the Olympics being broadcast on the advert-free BBC – TV advertising revenues fell ten per cent in July and nine per cent in August – but said a one per cent fall in September means across the first nine months the broadcaster remains in 'positive territory.' With viewers defecting to the BBC the broadcaster's flagship channel ITV has seen its share of viewing and share of commercial impacts, a key metric media agencies focus to drive deals for their TV advertiser clients, have fallen six per cent year-on-year to 30 October. With the crucial, and tough, negotiating season for 2013 TV advertising deals set to start chief executive Adam Crozier was keen to point out that its decline has been due to one-off TV events this year. 'This has been an extraordinary year for UK television with many unique events including the Queen's Jubilee, The London Olympics and the Paralympics,' he said. 'In fact nine out of the top ten programmes broadcast will not return next year and as we expected this has affected our viewing performance. However, we do not expect our viewing performance in 2012 to impact our advertising share in 2013 and we are focussed on growing our share of viewing next year.'
The acting director general of the BBC has vowed to be like The Stranglers and 'get a grip' on the corporation following the resignation of George Entwistle over a Newsnight malarkey. Tim Davie said that he had set up a 'clear line of command' in BBC News. The director and deputy director of news have been asked to 'step aside' pending an internal review into the way claims about Jimmy Savile were handled. Davie said Entwistle's - much-discussed - pay-off was a matter for the BBC Trust. He was appointed to the role on Saturday after Entwistle announced he was resigning. Entwistle left after eight weeks in the post with a year's salary of four hundred and fifty grand. Or, you know, the cost of two week's worth of episodes of EastEnders, whichever you prefer. Amid criticism from Downing Street of the pay-off Lord Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust - the corporation's governing body - has written to Commons lack of culture media and sport committee, describing the decision as 'justified and necessary.' His letter says the sum was what the BBC would have had to pay if they had fired Entwistle and that the Trust was considering doing just that if he had not volunteered his resignation first. The lack of culture secretary the vile and odious rascal Miller said it was 'very difficult to justify the decision that's been taken to really be able to justify to the licence fee payer value for money and this is going to have to happen.' Indeed, a bit like MPs having difficulty justifying some of the expense claims they were putting in a couple of years back. Did you think we'd all forgotten about that, madam? Davie, told staff by e-mail on Monday that there would be 'no handbrake turn' in implementing work started by Entwistle on 'getting rid of anything that gets in the way of delivering the best of British creativity to our audiences.'
So, that would be a vast swatch of middle-management, then. No great loss there. In other developments, Fran Unsworth, head of newsgathering, and Ceri Thomas, editor of Radio 4's Today programme have been asked to fill the respective roles of director and deputy director of news, while 'to address the pressure on the Newsnight team' Karen O'Connor will become acting editor of the programme. A journalist involved with the North Wales child abuse investigation quit his job at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. BIJ editor Iain Overton had tweeted before broadcast that Newsnight was going to link a senior political figure with paedophilia.
In his first televised interview since taking the role, Davie said: 'If the public are going to get journalism they trust from the BBC I have to be, as director general, very clear on who is running the news operation and ensuring that journalism we put out passes muster. The first decision I have made is to get a grip of that, take action and build trust by putting a clear line of command in. Separately, we are going to look at the individual process, and there may be disciplinary action. But I want to be fair to people. I don't subscribe to the view that you should act very quickly in that regard and be unreasonable.' Entwistle resigned following a Newsnight report which led to former Tory treasurer, Lord McAlpine, being wrongly accused of child abuse in North Wales in the 1980s by some people on the Internet. Davie told BBC Radio 4's The World At One that he hoped to talk to Lord McAlpine personally about Newsnight broadcast. Ken MacQuarrie, director of BBC Scotland, was asked to investigate how Newsnight was allowed to broadcast its report and his findings were presented to the acting director general on Sunday. The BBC said it found that neither the director of news Helen Boaden nor her deputy Steve Mitchell 'had anything at all to do with the failed Newsnight investigation into Lord McAlpine.' However, they were in the chain of command at the time that Newsnight shelved an earlier investigation into abuse claims against former BBC presenter Jimmy Savile. They had removed themselves from making decisions on some areas of BBC News output while a separate inquiry, by former head of Sky News Nick Pollard, was held into that decision. The BBC said once the Pollard Review reports, Boaden and Mitchell 'expect to then return to their positions.' MacQuarie said: 'To address the lack of clarity around the editorial chain of command, a decision has been taken to re-establish a single management to deal with all output, Savile-related or otherwise.'
Civil liberties groups have warned of a further erosion of free speech after Kent police arrested a teenager for allegedly posting an image of a burning remembrance poppy on Facebook. The arrest of the nineteen-year-old from Canterbury follows a serious of other incidents in which people have been given criminal records for saying unpalatable things online. The comedian Tim Minchin was among those to voice his concern over the latest case, tweeting: 'You've a right to burn a (fake!) poppy. Whether I agree with the action is utterly irrelevant. Kent Police are out of line.' And lawyer David Allen Green added on Twitter: 'What was the point of winning either World War if, in 2012, someone can be casually arrested by Kent Police for burning a poppy?' According to the Gruniad, the image was posted with the caption: 'How about that you squadey cunts?' Not very nice, admittedly, but being 'not very nice' is not a criminal offence. Or, if it is, it shouldn't be. Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch said the arrest was 'utterly ridiculous,' adding: 'It is not illegal to offend people.' The teenager was held under Malicious Communications Act.
An inquiry is under way after a person broke into the Tower of London and stole a set of keys. The incident took place in the early hours of 6 November and the intruder got past the first gate, a spokeswoman for the Historic Royal Palaces said. Keys for a restaurant, conference rooms and an internal lock to the drawbridges were on the stolen set. The locks have all now been changed. Security was not up to 'the expected standards,' the spokeswoman said. The Tower, which houses the Crown Jewels, is guarded by the Yeoman Warders or Beefeaters.
The Crown Jewels were 'not at risk' and 'at no point was the security of the Tower at risk,' the spokeswoman claimed. She added that they could not reveal more details about the incident as a police inquiry was ongoing. But she added: 'We can however confirm that during this incident, keys for a restaurant and conference rooms were taken together with a key to an internal lock to the Tower drawbridges that is not accessible from the outside. It would not have been possible to gain access to the Tower with any of these keys. All affected locks were immediately changed.' The spokeswoman said an internal investigation found that 'our well-established security systems and procedures are robust. However on this occasion, these procedures were not carried out to the expected standard,' she said. 'A staff disciplinary procedure is under way to address this issue.' The Metropolitan Police said: 'We have received an allegation of theft and this is being investigated by Tower Hamlets CID.'
A traffic reporter for a local FOX News affiliate has provided directions to Canada for disappointed Mitt Romney supporters. Jeff Brucculeri in Tulsa was presenting the latest traffic updates when he referenced the presidential election. The reporter said: 'I know a lot people said that if their candidate lost the election, they'd be moving to Canada. Not sure why, but that's what some of the folks promised out there. So let me give you the quickest and directest route to Canada from Tulsa.' Brucculeri then provided directions to the Canadian border, much to the amusement of his colleagues who can be heard laughing off-screen.
Florence Welch has revealed how 'a toilet disaster' nearly ruined a gig for Radio2 - when her drummer got stuck in the netty before the show. The singer has told how Florence & The Machine drummer Chris Hayden was 'discovered screaming' for help in a cubicle at London's Rivoli Ballroom this week and had to be rescued in order to join the rest of the band on stage.
The band were performing the show for Jo Whiley's BBC show when then toilet trauma occurred. 'I didn't know whether to say it on stage because I didn't want to embarrass him, but he got trapped in the loo. He was screaming,' said Florence, as reported in the Scotsman. While she had concerns about embarrassing the musician on stage, she is clearly more comfortable talking to tabloids. 'He got really freaked out,' she added. 'We could hear him – "Let me out" – trying to bash the door down, and they had to take the door off its hinges, so my Dad did offer to stand in. But he did escape.'
Which brings us to yer actual Keith Telly Topping's 45 of the Day. Heeeere's Herbie.
1 Downton Abbey - Sun ITV - 11.76m
2 Strictly Come Dancing - Sat BBC1 - 10.95m
3 Coronation Street - Mon ITV - 9.86m
4 The X Factor - Sun ITV - 9.49m5 EastEnders - Mon BBC1 - 8.76m
6 Emmerdale - Mon ITV - 8.24m
7 New Tricks - Mon BBC1 - 7.96m
8 Countryfile - Sun BBC1 - 7.30m
9 Merlin - Sat BBC1 - 6.88m
10 Ten O'Clock News - Mon BBC1 - 6.19m
11 Antiques Roadshow - Sun BBC1 - 5.99m
12 Six O'Clock News - Tues BBC1 - 5.76m
13 Have I Got News For You - Fri BBC1 - 5.68m
14 BBC News - Sun BBC1 - 5.55m
15 Fifty Years of Bond Cars: A Top Gear Special - Mon BBC2/HD - 5.54m
16 The Paradise - Tues BBC1 - 5.30m
17 Casualty - Sat BBC1 - 5.03m
18 DCI Banks - Wed ITV - 4.96m*
19 Pointless Celebrities - Sat BBC1 - 4.86m
20 The Graham Norton Show - Fri BBC1 - 4.61m
21 The Pride of Britain Awards - Tues ITV - 4.59m*
22 All Star Mr & Mrs - Wed ITV - 4.54m*
23 The ONE Show - Tues BBC1 - 4.50m
24 Holby City - Tues BBC1 - 4.47m
25 Young Apprentice - Thurs BBC1 - 4.44m
Those programmes marked '*' do not include HD figures.
Britain's oldest acting extra, who appeared on Emmerdale for thirty eight years, has died at the age of one hundred. Lottie Goodwin appeared in scenes at the Woolpack pub and Cafe Hope until retiring in April 2011 aged ninety nine. The great-grandmother of thirteen died at a care home in Manchester, the Jewish Chronicle reports.
Goodwin also had walk-on parts in Coronation Street for thirty years, as well as spots in Channel Four soaps Brookside and Hollyoaks. Speaking in 2010, the same year she was brought into the public's attention, she reflected on her long career: 'I love the job and I want to go on forever. They say I'm the oldest extra in England, there's nobody else of my age still doing TV. My friends call me wonder woman and my daughters ask why I still do it, but I just love the job.' As well as soaps, Goodwin was also an extra on popular dramas including Brideshead Revisited, Lost Empires, Jewel in the Crown and Northern Lights. Britain's Got Talent non-entity Amanda Holden has called for Wee Shughie McFee, the sour-faced Scottish chef off Crossroads to return to the UK and 'save' The X Factor following a series of declining ratings.
Speaking to the Digital Spy website, Holden admitted that her former boss is 'probably disappointed' with The X Factor's performance this year. 'I think that he's probably disappointed, but if he's got any sense he'll get on his white horse and he'll come charging back next year and save it,' she said. 'I think Simon should come back to the UK. I just miss him. I want him to come home.' ITV has reported a six per cent fall in TV advertising revenues in the third quarter of 2012 as advertisers held back from spending while viewers tuned into the BBC's Olympic coverage. However, a rejuvenated ITV Studios is forecast to make profits of more than one hundred million quid this year. ITV took a battering during the third quarter thanks to the Olympics being broadcast on the advert-free BBC – TV advertising revenues fell ten per cent in July and nine per cent in August – but said a one per cent fall in September means across the first nine months the broadcaster remains in 'positive territory.' With viewers defecting to the BBC the broadcaster's flagship channel ITV has seen its share of viewing and share of commercial impacts, a key metric media agencies focus to drive deals for their TV advertiser clients, have fallen six per cent year-on-year to 30 October. With the crucial, and tough, negotiating season for 2013 TV advertising deals set to start chief executive Adam Crozier was keen to point out that its decline has been due to one-off TV events this year. 'This has been an extraordinary year for UK television with many unique events including the Queen's Jubilee, The London Olympics and the Paralympics,' he said. 'In fact nine out of the top ten programmes broadcast will not return next year and as we expected this has affected our viewing performance. However, we do not expect our viewing performance in 2012 to impact our advertising share in 2013 and we are focussed on growing our share of viewing next year.'
The acting director general of the BBC has vowed to be like The Stranglers and 'get a grip' on the corporation following the resignation of George Entwistle over a Newsnight malarkey. Tim Davie said that he had set up a 'clear line of command' in BBC News. The director and deputy director of news have been asked to 'step aside' pending an internal review into the way claims about Jimmy Savile were handled. Davie said Entwistle's - much-discussed - pay-off was a matter for the BBC Trust. He was appointed to the role on Saturday after Entwistle announced he was resigning. Entwistle left after eight weeks in the post with a year's salary of four hundred and fifty grand. Or, you know, the cost of two week's worth of episodes of EastEnders, whichever you prefer. Amid criticism from Downing Street of the pay-off Lord Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust - the corporation's governing body - has written to Commons lack of culture media and sport committee, describing the decision as 'justified and necessary.' His letter says the sum was what the BBC would have had to pay if they had fired Entwistle and that the Trust was considering doing just that if he had not volunteered his resignation first. The lack of culture secretary the vile and odious rascal Miller said it was 'very difficult to justify the decision that's been taken to really be able to justify to the licence fee payer value for money and this is going to have to happen.' Indeed, a bit like MPs having difficulty justifying some of the expense claims they were putting in a couple of years back. Did you think we'd all forgotten about that, madam? Davie, told staff by e-mail on Monday that there would be 'no handbrake turn' in implementing work started by Entwistle on 'getting rid of anything that gets in the way of delivering the best of British creativity to our audiences.'
So, that would be a vast swatch of middle-management, then. No great loss there. In other developments, Fran Unsworth, head of newsgathering, and Ceri Thomas, editor of Radio 4's Today programme have been asked to fill the respective roles of director and deputy director of news, while 'to address the pressure on the Newsnight team' Karen O'Connor will become acting editor of the programme. A journalist involved with the North Wales child abuse investigation quit his job at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. BIJ editor Iain Overton had tweeted before broadcast that Newsnight was going to link a senior political figure with paedophilia.
In his first televised interview since taking the role, Davie said: 'If the public are going to get journalism they trust from the BBC I have to be, as director general, very clear on who is running the news operation and ensuring that journalism we put out passes muster. The first decision I have made is to get a grip of that, take action and build trust by putting a clear line of command in. Separately, we are going to look at the individual process, and there may be disciplinary action. But I want to be fair to people. I don't subscribe to the view that you should act very quickly in that regard and be unreasonable.' Entwistle resigned following a Newsnight report which led to former Tory treasurer, Lord McAlpine, being wrongly accused of child abuse in North Wales in the 1980s by some people on the Internet. Davie told BBC Radio 4's The World At One that he hoped to talk to Lord McAlpine personally about Newsnight broadcast. Ken MacQuarrie, director of BBC Scotland, was asked to investigate how Newsnight was allowed to broadcast its report and his findings were presented to the acting director general on Sunday. The BBC said it found that neither the director of news Helen Boaden nor her deputy Steve Mitchell 'had anything at all to do with the failed Newsnight investigation into Lord McAlpine.' However, they were in the chain of command at the time that Newsnight shelved an earlier investigation into abuse claims against former BBC presenter Jimmy Savile. They had removed themselves from making decisions on some areas of BBC News output while a separate inquiry, by former head of Sky News Nick Pollard, was held into that decision. The BBC said once the Pollard Review reports, Boaden and Mitchell 'expect to then return to their positions.' MacQuarie said: 'To address the lack of clarity around the editorial chain of command, a decision has been taken to re-establish a single management to deal with all output, Savile-related or otherwise.' Civil liberties groups have warned of a further erosion of free speech after Kent police arrested a teenager for allegedly posting an image of a burning remembrance poppy on Facebook. The arrest of the nineteen-year-old from Canterbury follows a serious of other incidents in which people have been given criminal records for saying unpalatable things online. The comedian Tim Minchin was among those to voice his concern over the latest case, tweeting: 'You've a right to burn a (fake!) poppy. Whether I agree with the action is utterly irrelevant. Kent Police are out of line.' And lawyer David Allen Green added on Twitter: 'What was the point of winning either World War if, in 2012, someone can be casually arrested by Kent Police for burning a poppy?' According to the Gruniad, the image was posted with the caption: 'How about that you squadey cunts?' Not very nice, admittedly, but being 'not very nice' is not a criminal offence. Or, if it is, it shouldn't be. Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch said the arrest was 'utterly ridiculous,' adding: 'It is not illegal to offend people.' The teenager was held under Malicious Communications Act.
An inquiry is under way after a person broke into the Tower of London and stole a set of keys. The incident took place in the early hours of 6 November and the intruder got past the first gate, a spokeswoman for the Historic Royal Palaces said. Keys for a restaurant, conference rooms and an internal lock to the drawbridges were on the stolen set. The locks have all now been changed. Security was not up to 'the expected standards,' the spokeswoman said. The Tower, which houses the Crown Jewels, is guarded by the Yeoman Warders or Beefeaters.
The Crown Jewels were 'not at risk' and 'at no point was the security of the Tower at risk,' the spokeswoman claimed. She added that they could not reveal more details about the incident as a police inquiry was ongoing. But she added: 'We can however confirm that during this incident, keys for a restaurant and conference rooms were taken together with a key to an internal lock to the Tower drawbridges that is not accessible from the outside. It would not have been possible to gain access to the Tower with any of these keys. All affected locks were immediately changed.' The spokeswoman said an internal investigation found that 'our well-established security systems and procedures are robust. However on this occasion, these procedures were not carried out to the expected standard,' she said. 'A staff disciplinary procedure is under way to address this issue.' The Metropolitan Police said: 'We have received an allegation of theft and this is being investigated by Tower Hamlets CID.' A traffic reporter for a local FOX News affiliate has provided directions to Canada for disappointed Mitt Romney supporters. Jeff Brucculeri in Tulsa was presenting the latest traffic updates when he referenced the presidential election. The reporter said: 'I know a lot people said that if their candidate lost the election, they'd be moving to Canada. Not sure why, but that's what some of the folks promised out there. So let me give you the quickest and directest route to Canada from Tulsa.' Brucculeri then provided directions to the Canadian border, much to the amusement of his colleagues who can be heard laughing off-screen.
Florence Welch has revealed how 'a toilet disaster' nearly ruined a gig for Radio2 - when her drummer got stuck in the netty before the show. The singer has told how Florence & The Machine drummer Chris Hayden was 'discovered screaming' for help in a cubicle at London's Rivoli Ballroom this week and had to be rescued in order to join the rest of the band on stage.
The band were performing the show for Jo Whiley's BBC show when then toilet trauma occurred. 'I didn't know whether to say it on stage because I didn't want to embarrass him, but he got trapped in the loo. He was screaming,' said Florence, as reported in the Scotsman. While she had concerns about embarrassing the musician on stage, she is clearly more comfortable talking to tabloids. 'He got really freaked out,' she added. 'We could hear him – "Let me out" – trying to bash the door down, and they had to take the door off its hinges, so my Dad did offer to stand in. But he did escape.' Which brings us to yer actual Keith Telly Topping's 45 of the Day. Heeeere's Herbie.
