ITV

Ear Candy: My Life in TV

Credit: ITV

The weekly pod invites celebrity guests to discuss their own lives on television, from favourite TV moments to their childhood on-screen inspirations. 

The likes of Mo Gilligan, Emily Atack and AJ Odudu choose the shows they would “bin, binge or bring back” and share their personal career journeys in television. Hammond’s own path to success started with a much-loved stint in the Big Brother house, after which she established herself as a permanent fixture on daytime TV. 

Government review of public service broadcasting begins

Google the words “public service broadcasting” and you’ll see that the first few links relate to a well-known band that has played at Glastonbury, the Royal Albert Hall and Brixton. Its first album was called Inform – Educate – Entertain. 

Only after that will you find links to Ofcom’s page on public service broadcasting and the Government’s new Public Service Broadcasting Advisory Panel. 

Goodbye to all that: Peter Bazalgette looks back on 2020

JANUARY

“Great fears of the Sicknesse here in the City, it being said that two or three houses are already shut up. God preserve us all.” The very first mention of the plague in The Diary of Samuel Pepys, on 30 April 1665. Fast forward 355 years and there’s this on 11 January on the ITV News site: “Health authorities in the central Chinese city of Wuhan are reporting the first death from a new type of coronavirus.”

Sir Lenny Henry pens drama Three Little Birds for ITV

(credit: ITV)

Inspired by his mother’s stories of leaving Jamaica in the 1950s for Great Britain, Henry has created six fictional episodes charting the adventures of two outgoing sisters, Leah and Chantrelle, and their virtuous acquaintance Hosanna.

When the trio, from St Anne’s district in Jamaica, board a cruise ship heading for Great Britain, they leave their family, friends and old lives behind to forge new horizons on the other side of the Atlantic.

ITV's Carolyn McCall: Flying the flag for PSB

Carolyn McCall offered a robust defence of public service broadcasting during the course of a revealing and wide-ranging interview at the RTS Digital Convention 2020. ITV’s CEO – who was probed by ITV News London and Loose Women presenter Charlene White – also discussed the Black Lives Matter movement, BritBox, ITV’s digital strategy and its response to the corona­virus epidemic.

McCall said that the first Covid-19 lockdown had “brought home to a lot of people” the importance of having “a trusted [TV] source, [with no] disinformation”.

ITV's pledge to transform inclusivity

In September, when dance troupe Diversity took to the stage for prime-time TV’s most controversial four minutes of 2020, one woman was watching especially intently – Ade Rawcliffe, ITV’s freshly promoted group director of diversity and inclusion.

“I was told they were going to do the dance. I thought it was incredibly moving, a wonderful creative expression,” she says of the group’s routine inspired by some of the year’s seminal events, not least the global Black Lives Matter protests.

New drama Manhunt II: The Night Stalker heads to ITV

Clunes will reprise his role as the former London Metropolitan Police detective, DCI Colin Sutton, this time in pursuit of a notorious serial rapist who has been terrorising elderly people in south east London for 17 years.

Based on Sutton’s real life diaries, the series will recount the steps he took to serve justice.

Writer Ed Whitmore also wrote the first series, which told the real life story of the murder Amelie Delagrange on Twickenham Green in 2004.

I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! 2020 line-up revealed

The announcement came during Sunday’s 20th anniversary special that saw presenters Ant and Dec suffer the infamous Bush Tucker Trials for the first time.

Due to current lockdown restrictions, the producers have moved the series from the Australian outback to Gwrych Castle in Abergele, North Wales.

A far cry from the usual sweaty base camp, the following celebrities are bracing themselves for a royally cold Welsh winter.