UK TV Drama Under Heavy Attack

Award-winning writer Paul Abbott has continued his pressure on broadcasters, with a demand they commission more single films on television.  Ironically, his call comes as both Channel 4 and BBC1 are cutting back on drama.

According to The Stage newspaper, Abbott, the outspoken creator of Channel 4's hit series Shameless, which follows the lives of the dysfunctional Gallagher family on a sink estate in Manchester and has won popular and critical acclaim, said that the reluctance to make screenplays was a problem for the UK.

Abbott warned: "If someone has a brilliant idea for a 90-minute film, they go to the UK Film Council, get funding and release it as a cinema-release film, instead of as TV film. The BBC rarely pays for TV films anymore."

 The E STINGS competition 2007

Yes, we're doing it again. The annual opportunity to weird us out with your crazed imaginations is here once more as E4 and Creative Review proudly present E STINGS 4. "The E STINGS competition has become something of an E4 institution," says E4 head of on-air, Neil Gorringe. "It's fantastic to see what people can get up to with our logo." The big difference this year is that we want you to create stings not just for E4 but also for E4 Music. "Since it launched in the 6am-2pm slot in August 2005, E4 Music has been a great success for the channel. People are watching E4 round the clock," says Channel 4 and E4 marketing executive Peter Spiers, "and since E4 Music shares the same brand values as E4, we think it deserves its own E STINGS.

Former US Vice-President Al Gore was in London yesterday for the British launch of the cable channel that he co-founded with entrepreneur Joel Hyatt in 2005, with the aim of "democratising the medium of television."

Current TV is the first channel where one-third of the channel's programming is supplied (and voted for) by the audience.

The 79-year-old film director Ken Russell quit the Cebrity Big Brother TV reality TV show after a row with fellow housemate Jade Goody at lunchtime today, show bosses announced. The housemates were told of Russell's departure when a laminate revealing Ken's exit was given to journalist Carole Malone.

Russell's fellow celebrities appeared stunned when the news was given to them.

The BBC has decided to invest £130,000 in the training of the next generation of series producers. Fourteen new producers will benefit from the training. The BBC has extended its partnership with Glasgow-based TRC (formerly The Research Centre) by jointly creating a new year-long Series Producer Programme for BBC and independent producers.

Gunmen dressed as police stormed the offices of the Shaabiya channel in Zayouna in the east of Baghdad killing eight workers. The channel has so far only broadcast test images and patriotic music, and is said to be aimed at a Sunni Muslim audience. Sunni-Shia violence dominates much of the current unrest in Iraq.

The attack comes on the same day a peer-reviewed report by medical journal The Lancet is published suggesting the Iraqi death toll since the 2003 invasion could be as high as 650,000. 

Versions of BBC 1, ITV1 and E4 will be available on the BT Movio Service running on Virgin's new Lobster phone from October 1st.  The channels will be the same as the terrestrial TV versions, but without some films, US TV programmes and sports.

People paying more than £25 a month will get the handset and access to the TV service for free - it will otherwise cost £199 for the handset and £5 a month. You will also need a TV license. Most interestingly the service will ignore the 3G network, and instead broadcast via Digital Radio. 

More from the Guardian

Men Behaving Badly star Martin Clunes is turning away from sitcom with his next TV appearance. He's back on screen next month, playing a man who discovers he has testicular cancer, in a bittersweet drama called Losing It (ITV1, September).

It's written by former advertising executive Paul Mendelson, the creator of My Hero and May to December, and based on his own real life story. Martin plays ad copywriter Phil, a father-of-two married to Nancy (Holly Aird).