Sony wants an 'iTunes' for movies

Sony is planning to make 500 films available online from next year, reports BBC News. The model, according to Michael Arrieta, senior vice president of Sony Pictures, would be Apple's iTunes music download site.

There remain big issues to giving people more access to films and other digital content anywhere, anytime.

Issues over protecting and controlling the distribution of content once it has been legally downloaded and moved to a portable device, for instance, still concern the movie industry.

But with the growing popularity of powerful portable entertainment devices, such as Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP), which can play movies and other multimedia content, it is becoming a pressing concern for the industry.

Westway axed

BBC World Service radio is planning to axe its twice-weekly serial, Westway, reports The Stage.

A spokesman for the Corporation said: “We are changing our English programme schedule. Weekdays will feature greater factual content, whereas arts will play more heavily at the weekend. We are not turning our back on drama.”

Tranter warns of BBC drama cutbacks

The head of BBC drama commissioning [Jane Tranter] has admitted she will have to start making shows on tighter budgets to meet director general Mark Thompson's 15% cost-saving target.

There's a full report of Tranter's comments in Media Guardian (free registration required).

"The new drama series commissions that come through will have to be made for less money. The cost per hour in some areas is going to go down. But it's not about working people harder to do the same amount of output. Yes, it is taxing, but for me it's about managing the mix of the drama portfolio," Ms Tranter added.

Self-published success

Inspiring stories in The Independent for anyone thinking of self-publishing. Non-fiction tends to do best - The Pocket Book of Patriotism has sold over 167,000 copies - but Dominic Prince's article also finds some fiction successes.

A guide to self-publishing was distributed with the New Year 2005 issue of the Guild's magazine, UK Writer. Additional copies are still available - free to Guild members, £3 for non-members.

Full details can be found on the Guild's website.

Nicola Shindler - Red Productions

Top independent TV producer, Nicola Shindler, is interviewed in The Stage. Having worked with Russell T Davies and Paul Abbott she knows all about good writing.

She is however, always on the look out for something new and original, particularly as feels really good screenwriters are few and far between. She confesses: “I think there are very few talented writers in the world, I really do. I actually believe calibre will out - so if someone is good enough and has written a script - as long as they send it somewhere it should get recognised at some point. In all honesty a lot of scripts that get sent in are terrible.”

Red Productions operates a policy where every script that gets sent to it is read and while Shindler acknowledges it is rare that something comes through this way, it does happen.

“If we get a script we like then we’ll get the writer in to talk to and we get some scripts in from agents. Reading everything is our way of giving something back and it is not that we necessarily want only new writers - it is important to give people access who might not get it anywhere else.”

Book reviews reviewed

Criticising the critics, at Beatrix(USA).

How did this season's hot books generate their heat? And why do other novels surrounded by buzz turn into duds? Beatrix openly speculates about these questions in the form of a "book review review." I'll watch the major book reviewers to discern patterns of taste and/or critical strategy, and sometimes I'll follow a book through the review matrix to see how opinions coalesce or wildly diverge.

Footballers' Wives

The return of Footballers' Wives for a fourth series prompts praise from Mark Lawson in The Guardian.

Last year, I heard Zöe Lucker (who plays Tanya Turner, the fatal female of the series) being interviewed on radio. When she spoke glowingly of the show, the host put her down with: "It's not exactly Shakespeare, is it?" But this comment is at least half-wrong. While even an aficionado has to acknowledge that the dialogue rarely matches that of the Stratford dramatist - "I was pissed and she was rat-arsed" is a representative line from the series four opener - the plots are firmly in the classical tradition: all double weddings, mistaken identities and, to start off the new series, swapped babies.

Copyright dispute hangs over blockbuster

American author James Reston Jr is claiming that the forthcoming Hollywood film Kingdom of Heaven, directed by Ridley Scott, has violated American and international copyright law by using "events, characters, scenes, descriptions and character tensions" in the film that were "strikingly similar" to his narrative history Warriors of God: Richard The Lionheart And Saladin In The Third Crusade.

The studio releasing the film, 20th Century Fox, have rejected the claim but, according to the New York Times, the dispute looks set to run and run.

Mr. Reston insists that his history of the Third Crusade, when Richard the Lionheart tried to wrest control of Jerusalem from the Muslim conqueror Saladin, fleshed out many obscure details from the period and brought to life minor historical characters who turn up in Kingdom of Heaven. The book, published a few months before 9/11, has sold about 100,000 copies worldwide.

BBC Last Laugh - updated

You can now download all the scripts for the BBC's Last Laugh sitcom writing competition. To enter the competition you need to complete one of 8 original sitcoms that have been written by established comedy writers. The first 20 minutes of a half hour sitcom has been written - you have to write the final 10.

The closing date for entries is 6 May 2005.

Andrew Davies on Bleak House

King of the adapters Andrew Davies talks about tackling his biggest project to date - BBC1’s forthcoming epic 16-part serial of Bleak House - and admits Dickens’ labyrinthine plotting has almost got the better of him.

There's a full interview by Rob Driscoll in The Stage.

“On the plus side, Dickens gives you such strong lines of dialogue and there are all these wonderful, grotesque characters you can really run with,” says Cardiff-born Davies.

“But plot-wise it’s a nightmare, because it is so convoluted and keeps spinning off into sub-plots. Your main concern is to keep focused on the central plot, that the whole audience can follow. In truth, when you get down to the finest detail, quite a bit of the plot doesn’t work, so you have to straighten things out. But every problem is an opportunity in disguise and I think we’ve cracked it.”

Fincham to head BBC One

Peter Fincham has been confirmed as the new Controller of BBC One, reports BBC News.

Mr Fincham is credited with the smooth merger of independent production companies Talkback and Thames under the banner Talkback Thames, in 2003. He left the company in January.

He said that his new job had a "clear focus", and his appointment represented a change within the BBC.

"Appointing me, as an outsider, who has never worked at the BBC is a sign of an outwardly facing BBC," he said.

ITV staff to strike

Production staff at ITV have voted to strike over pay, leaving shows such as Coronation Street and Emmerdale facing possible disruption.
Broadcasting union Bectu said 55% of its members voted in favour of walkouts over a below-inflation pay offer.

Staff were angry that executives were being awarded large share bonuses, said Bectu assistant general secretary Gerry Morrissey.

The union expects to announce dates for strikes after Easter.

More details from BBC News

British Council - New Writing Anthology

Submissions are being accepted for New Writing 14, published by the British Council.

Writers from the UK and the Commonwealth are encouraged to submit short stories, poetry, essays or extracts from work in progress. The deadline for submissions is 30 June 2005.

The work must be unpublished and not be due for publication until at the earliest January 2007, and the author should be willing to give the British Council electronic rights for 2 years following publication, plus translation rights and other sub-rights to be confirmed. There is no limit on the length of pieces, but constraints of space mean that longer items will stand less chance of acceptance. Submissions should be sent in triplicate, clearly typed, double-spaced, page numbered and with name and address on each piece to:
New Writing
Film and Literature Department
British Council
10 Spring Gardens
London SW1A 2BN

There's been some controversy in recent days about comments made by Toby Litt and Ali Smith, the editors of New Writing 13, criticising the standard of submissions, particularly by women writers. There's some response on today's Guardian and a letter from Litt and Smith themselves.

Playwright slams

Theatre and Beyond and Chichester Festival Theatre are looking for writers who want to play and experiment with their work for their Playwrights Slams 2005.

You can find full details on the BBC Writersroom website.

Unions give BBC strike ballot deadline

The three biggest broadcasting unions, Bectu, Amicus and the NUJ, have told the BBC to issue a three-month moratorium on redundancy plans or face a strike ballot on 4 April, reports BBC News.

"There is a strong feeling of anger among staff over these job losses," said Gerry Morrissey, assistant general secretary of Bectu.

"They believe the director general has lost touch with what should happen at the BBC.

"A lot of these decisions appear to be politically motivated and the director general, chairman and BBC governors have decided to beat themselves up before the government does so."

Unions have warned the BBC could face "severe" industrial unrest over the massive job cuts announced last December and earlier this week.

BBC to cut 2,000 programme jobs

The BBC is to cut more than 2,000 jobs in its programme-making divisions, reports BBC News. Among the job cuts is a reduction of 150 in "drama entertainment and children's by 2008", but a lot of the details are still sketchy. The National Union of Journalists say that the cuts will "rip the heart out" of the Corporation.

Monday's announcement of 2,050 losses comes after news earlier this month that 1,730 jobs would go in support services such as finance and personnel. The 3,780 represents 19% of the workforce.

The latest cuts will be made across the production divisions from TV and radio to news and new media.

[Mark] Thompson [Director General of the BBC] said it was "a difficult and painful process but necessary". The cuts and savings will be made over the next three years.

Money saved would go back into programmes, including drama, news and local output, he said.

Alan Plater night on BBC Four

This Saturday, 26 March, is Alan Plater night on BBC Four. The long-standing Guild member, CBE recipient, and doyen of British TV writers, will be celebrated with the screening of a special documentary and plays/films including Last of the Blonde Bombshells and The Land of Green Ginger.

Arts Council England announces funding strategy

Arts Council England (ACE) has announced a three-year funding strategy, reports The Stage. Following a funding freeze from Government, ACE have told 121 organisations that they will no longer receive funding.

Announcing the cuts, acting chief executive of ACE Kim Evans said organisations facing reductions were those that received less than £20,000 annually from the funding body or, in cases such as Arts & Business, had the resources to make up the difference from elsewhere.

“We have had to make choices and these choices mean that some organisations have had to fall out. The policy decision to look at those on less than £20,000 would have been done anyway but not all of them and not necessarily now,” she said. “If you received less [than £20,000] it is not the best way to fund you.”

However, 60% of organisations currently funded will receive increases, some in excess of inflation.

Law attacks NYMT funding cuts

Jude Law has written to The Times protesting about the failure of the Arts Council to award a £100,000 grant to the National Youth Music Theatre, reports BBC News.

[NYMT]chairman Maggie Semple said an Arts Council-commissioned review initially recommended a "substantial" award for the company.

"They encouraged us to go through this lengthy process," she said. "They commissioned this report, and at the end of all that, 14 months later, they're now saying 'no'."

"If they had told us nine or even six months ago we wouldn't have made the plans that we have," Ms Semple added. "They have irresponsibly led us along."

The power behind the mini-series

From Media Guardian (free registration required)

This Easter ITV's drama blockbuster is Colditz [written by Peter Morgan], and at first sight the glossy mini-series about Europe's most haunting war prison seems to have "Granada classic" stamped all over it. Damian Lewis, of Band of Brothers, The Forsyte Saga and Jeffrey Archer: The Truth, stars as the first escapee from Colditz. Andy Harries, of Cold Feet, Life Begins and Dirty Filthy Love is executive producer. But at the screening Harries was overshadowed by Justin Bodle, 44, the co-producer, whose little-known London-based company, Power, contributed 40% of the £6m budget.

Maggie Brown's article looks at the success of Bodle, and his criteria for an international hit mini-series.

Laura Mackie, the BBC's deputy drama controller, says Bodle is more than just a financier: "Power's primary creative input is in the casting, mainly because they need internationally recognised names to sell their shows in as many countries as possible. They have some involvement in scripts, and the vision of the piece. So far it has worked well."

Book trade consolidation

THE NEXT 10 years will see the number of major players in the book trade reduce to three or four, according to Tim Hely Hutchinson, Chief Executive of Hachette Livre UK. He was speaking at the London Book Fair session Publishing – The Next Decade, organised by Jacks Thomas of Midas and London Book Fair (LBF) Director Alistair Burtenshaw, and probably the most well-attended event of the LBF.

Hely Hutchinson sees further consolidation as inevitable to increase publishing bargaining power in a tight market. “Trade publishers feel squeezed competing for authors and retail space,” he said. “Increased publishing strength in relation to retailers will redress the balance of power. I see the number of major players becoming fewer over the next few years, down to about three or four.”

From Publishing News.

Reel Talent Award

Writer/directors, in partnership with a producer, can enter The Smirnoff Experience Reel Talent Award

Entrants must submit a script and story board for a 5-minute short film and can also send a show reel of up to two other short films. There are three first prizes worth more than £10,000 each.

The deadline for entries is 22 April 2005.

NewsRevue

NewsRevue, "The World's Longest Running Live Comedy Show" is accepting submissions from non-commissioned writers. According to the BBC Writers Room, "NewsRevue are looking for new writers to produce song parodies and sketches on all topical subjects on a non-commissioned basis from now until July 2005."

Sketches should be sent to mail@newsrevue.com

NewsRevue

NewsRevue, "The World's Longest Running Live Comedy Show" is accepting submissions from non-commissioned writers. According to the BBC Writers Room, "NewsRevue are looking for new writers to produce song parodies and sketches on all topical subjects on a non-commissioned basis from now until July 2005."

Sketches should be sent to mail@newsrevue.com

Shed-loads of cash

The four founders of Shed Productions are set to pocket £5.5m each when shares in the company begin trading tomorrow, reports Media Guardian.

Shed's founders include the chief executive, Eileen Gallagher, and managing director Brian Park, who earned the nickname "the axeman" in a former incarnation as Coronation Street producer in the late 90s.

The other two beneficiaries of tomorrow's float will be creative directors Ann McManus and Maureen Chadwick, who worked with Park on Coronation Street before they hooked up to launch Shed in 1998.

Shed will place 25.5 million ordinary shares at 88p each on AIM, London's alternative investment market, valuing the company at £44m, which is at the top end of the predicted price range.

The company's four co-founders are each selling just over half their 25% stake in the company, meaning they will each net around £5.5m in cash.

Film tax relief

Yesterday's Budget saw more tweaks to the tax credits available for British films. The headline is that tax credits have been extended to bigger budget films, but the details are quite complicated so if you're interested (i.e. if you're a producer) have a look at BBC News :-)

Shoot the writers

Guild member Colin Bennett is putting together a second series of his late night comedy writing talent show Shoot The Writers.

There's no payment if your stuff gets used, but the idea is that it is a competition and your prize is the chance to get your work showcased. The closing date for entries is 30 April 2005.

Treble triumph for Abbott

Paul Abbott's mantelpiece, already creaking after numerous competition wins for the his series Shameless, will need reinforcing after a treble triumph at the Royal Television Society Awards this week.

Shameless won the Best Drama Series award, and was described by the judges as "Exciting, intelligent, mucky, poignant, raw, amusing, involving and always entertaining."

Abbott also won the award for Best Drama Writer, as well as the special Judges Award:

Tonight's recipient of the Judges’ Award has been working in television for the past 21 years and has already brought more than a hundred hours of drama to our screen. He is known for his high voltage energy, youthful disrespect for the obvious and a bravura ability to speak the unspeakable.

He started his career in Coronation Street in 1984, seamlessly combining high comedy with sharp and sometimes painful emotional truths and produced the second series of Cracker. He moved on to write the bewitching and compelling Reckless and Touching Evil - a series that explored the darker recesses of life.

Clocking Off in 1999 brilliantly demonstrated his compassion, rage and humorous ability to comment on the nature of the human condition, and with Linda Green, he made an ordinary life feel aspirational and inspirational. State of Play was a simply unmissable television event both entertaining and intriguing.

To top it all, last year, he created and wrote Shameless - one of his most personal, audacious, celebratory and downright dirty pieces of work to date. He was involved with every aspect of the production and it shows - from its style, pace and bravura casting to its emotional truth, social politics and comedy.

Treble triumph for Abbott

Paul Abbott's mantelpiece, already creaking after numerous competition wins for the his series Shameless, will need reinforcing after a treble triumph at the Royal Television Society Awards this week.

Shameless won the Best Drama Series award, and was described by the judges as "Exciting, intelligent, mucky, poignant, raw, amusing, involving and always entertaining."

Abbott also won the award for Best Drama Writer, as well as the special Judges Award:

Tonight's recipient of the Judges’ Award has been working in television for the past 21 years and has already brought more than a hundred hours of drama to our screen. He is known for his high voltage energy, youthful disrespect for the obvious and a bravura ability to speak the unspeakable.

He started his career in Coronation Street in 1984, seamlessly combining high comedy with sharp and sometimes painful emotional truths and produced the second series of Cracker. He moved on to write the bewitching and compelling Reckless and Touching Evil - a series that explored the darker recesses of life.

Clocking Off in 1999 brilliantly demonstrated his compassion, rage and humorous ability to comment on the nature of the human condition, and with Linda Green, he made an ordinary life feel aspirational and inspirational. State of Play was a simply unmissable television event both entertaining and intriguing.

To top it all, last year, he created and wrote Shameless - one of his most personal, audacious, celebratory and downright dirty pieces of work to date. He was involved with every aspect of the production and it shows - from its style, pace and bravura casting to its emotional truth, social politics and comedy.

BAFTA TV Awards

The nominations for the 2005 BAFTA TV Awards were announced today. There are too many nominees to list here, but notably absent from the Continuing Drama short-list is EastEnders, while stablemates Doctors and Holby City are both in the running.

The Awards ceremony will take place on 17 April.

The man behind Million Dollar Baby

Wile Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman bathed in the Oscar limelight last month, the man who wrote Million Dollar Baby was largely overlooked.

Not that screenwriter Paul Haggis is likely to be complaining too much. With his writer/director debut, Crash, just around the corner and Steven Spielberg lined up as his next producer, Haggis is, says The New York Times, one of the hottest writers in Hollywood.

Abi Brown wins Children's Award

Guild member Abi Brown has won the Arts Council's Children's Award with her very first play, Hey There Boy With The Bebop.

The play premiered at the Polka Theatre in Wimbledon in February 2004.

McCaughrean to write Peter Pan sequel

Geraldine McCaughrean has been chosen to write the sequel to JM Barrie's Peter Pan, reports BBC News.

Great Ormond Street hospital, which holds the Peter Pan copyright, invited authors to put themselves forward for the chance to write the sequel, with a panel of experts selecting the winner.

Londoner McCaughrean, 53, has won the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year three times for reinterpreting classics such as Noah's Ark, Moby Dick and The Canterbury Tales for younger readers.

Tom Hadaway

Tyneside playwright Tom Hadaway has died at the age of 81. There's an affectionate obituary in The Guardian by Alan Plater.

Throughout his career, Tom clung fast to Cecil Taylor's ad vice to "write from your own backyard", but there was nothing parochial about his vision. In his play Seafarers (1993), there is a wonderful account (based on a true story) of Jim Slater, a South Shields man who later became a leading seamens' union official, being arrested in Florida because the authorities, hearing his Geordie accent, assumed he must be a Russian spy. What emerged from this piece, a sweet-and-sour analysis of hilarious misunderstanding, was Tom's acute ear for the poetry that lies in everyday speech, including American vernacular. He had the generous ears of a generous man, and the strength to be tender.

Above all, he loved his native land. Of the language of the north-east, he wrote: "... if our betters shame us out of our phrases and pronunciation, we shall be without resource. From a shared history, dialect is the enabling power of the commoner." Maybe so, but there was nothing common about Tom Hadaway.

Libraries need lottery boost

National lottery funding should be introduced to tackle the "scandal" of Britain's shabby and neglected public library services, according to a report yesterday which says that well-stocked, attractive shelves, rather than IT terminals, are the bedrock of its future.
The report by the Commons select committee on culture, media and sport indicts 50% of library services as "persistently below standard" after decades of underfunding - an explanation for steadily falling book loans and visitor numbers over the past 15 years.

More in The Guardian.

ITV's new star formula

ITV has introduced a new budgeting formula whereby money is allocated to programmes in accordance with the popularity of the stars involved, reports Media Guardian (free registration required).

The formula has caused an immediate row within the network, with those who control programme commissioning saying it betrays a fundamental lack of understanding about how the creative process works.

One insider said: "What it now means is that it's more difficult to get a bigger budget unless you've got well-known faces, such as Ant and Dec or Julie Walters.

"It stifles risk-taking and gambles. But the thing is you often can't tell which shows are going to be hits - often viewers don't act as you think they might, despite a big name being attached. And surely that's down to the commissioners' instincts and experience, rather than a formula."

National Theatre of Variety

The Blackpool Grand is to become the National Theatre of Variety, reports The Stage.

In a deal between the theatre and Equity, the venue will announce its first programme in 2006 and it is hoped it will house a centre of excellence that will include training, a conference programme, a festival for the best in popular entertainment and an archive.

TV pirates

The first episode of the upcoming series of Doctor Who has been leaked onto the web. Darren Waters on BBC News looks at how widespread the problem of online TV piracy is.

Recent research suggested that the UK was the number one country for downloading TV programmes from the net.

Almost a fifth of all TV downloading was by UK net users.

Web tracking company Envisional said a typical episode of a show like 24 was downloaded by about 100,000 people globally.

The programmes are encoded into a computer file by individuals who make that file freely available for download by other users.

The point of film school

The point of going to film school is not necessarily to become a film-maker, says Elizabeth Van Ness in The New York Times. Increasingly students see them as places to learn general skills that can be applied in a range of commercial or public sector jobs.

To some extent, such broadening vision is already helping to make economic sense of film education, which in the past was often a long path to nowhere. "Most find their way, and the skills they learn from us are applicable to other careers and pursuits," Dale Pollock, dean of the School of Filmmaking at the North Carolina School of the Arts, said of his students. "So we're not wasting their time or money."

In praise of shorts

Margo Jefferson in The New York Times sings the praises of short films.

This year I got to see the 10 live-action and animated shorts nominated for Oscars. (I wish I'd seen the documentaries, too.) It was one of the best movie afternoons I've had in ages. So many full-length features dawdle, then pick up force, only to drift off again. With a good short - which runs from less than 5 to 20-something minutes - there's no time for all that. There's time only for that primal movie experience: absolute immersion in another world. And because it happens so quickly, it feels miraculous.

American imports

That staple of British arts journalism - why all our drama is vastly inferior to American imports - rears its head in The Observer.

I have it on good authority that the finest minds in the BBC drama department spend their lives watching Desperate Housewives. They're even running masterclasses on The O.C. American TV has set the bar incredibly high. It may even have changed the drama landscape forever.

Comment: My two favourite shows of the moment are homegrown - Help and Outlaws, an hour of pure quality on Sunday nights on BBC 2.

Doctor Who

Has a TV series ever been more eagerly awaited than the upcoming return of Doctor Who?

The Times has a sneak preview behind the scenes and suggests that head writer Russell T Davies will be the key to the show's success.

Davies may babble, but he also delivers. The scripts are, indeed, much better than Harry Potter. They are slick, witty and, most important of all, fresh. They also have Davies the Mouth’s fingerprints all over them. The Doctor’s slightly deranged monologue sounds suspiciously like Russell T himself.

Abbott goes factual

Hyper-busy writer Paul Abbott will script edit a new series of factual dramas for ITV, reports Media Guardian (free registration required).

"There is absolutely no reason why the drama in factual and documentary programmes shouldn't be excellent - particularly in terms of narrative and dialogue - but too often it isn't," Abbott said.

"The stories and the characters in this series are fantastic and we're going to make sure that we dramatise their amazing survivals to the highest possible standards. Unique Factuals is a strong Manchester-based indie and I'm determined to support TV production outside London."

The six survival stories will be told by some of the UK's top television script writers, including Daniel Brocklehurst, Oliver Brown and Jimmy Dowdall.

They will gather their information from survivors' testimonies and Abbott will then edit the scripts.

The resulting programmes will mix computer generated imagery with actors

to recount the stories, giving what ITV says will be a 'truly epic visual feel'.

BBC Last Laugh competition

The BBC is launching a new writing competition, Last Laugh, where entrants will be invited to write the second half of sitcom scripts started by well known writers.

The launch programme will go out on BBC3 on 19 March, with scripts available in free books or online from 28 March.

The competition is open to all non-professional writers, defined as anyone who made less than 50% of their income from writing in the last tax year.

Comment: Do they realise that will include a lot of people who would consider themselves professional writers?! (e.g. someone who had a hit show a couple of years ago but has got their next one stuck in development).

Full details are on the Last Laugh website.

EastEnders gets no Charity from Emmerdale

In a head-to-head battle of the soaps last night, BBC1's EastEnders was roundly beaten by Emmerdale on ITV1.

Both had hour-long specials - EastEnders to make up for a lost show on Friday when Comic Relief will squeeze the show out of the schedules, and Emmerdale to mark the departure of one of their most high profile characters, Charity Dingle.

On average during the hour from 7-8pm 6.3 million people watched the BBC while 9.1 million saw Charity leaving Emmerdale, according to unofficial overnight ratings, reported in Media Guardian (free registration required).

A spokeswoman for BBC1 played down the ratings figures, by saying EastEnders suffers when it has to go head-to-head with Emmerdale in the same slot as "the soap audience is split".

"It's par for the course when we go head-to-head. We had to do an hour-long episode because Comic Relief on Friday means we'll miss an episode then. But Emmerdale had a massive story-line, whereas we just had regular episodes," she said.

The lowest ever audience for EastEnders was 6.2 million - a 30% share - recorded on September 21 2004 when Ian Beale declared his love for café manager Jane Collins.

BBC Green Paper published

The government has published it's long-awaited Green Paper on the future of the BBC. The Board of Governors will be abolished, to be replaced by a BBC Trust (that is not actually a trust) and an executive board. The licence fee will remain in place until at least 2016.

Full details and the Green Paper itself are available from BBC News.

The Green Paper will work its way through Parliament, with a White Paper likely towards the end of the year.