Since October 2012 New Scotland Yard’s future has become increasingly uncertain. Following government cuts it was announced that the iconic 20-storey stainless steel office block could be sold in an attempt to save £500m annually. Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Craig Mackey has planned to move the headquarters to a nearby location in Cannon Row that houses approximately 31,200 less staff.

On 1 January  2014, Greece assumed the rotating presidency of the EU Council. Although it is the fifth time for the county to be in charge of the European Union, holding the presidency comes at a crucial point, a critical transitional juncture for Europe.

It may seem odd to suggest that the second series Bron/Broen (*The Bridge 2011-) *had a purity of narrative line. This was after all a series that began with a crewless tanker with its hidden plague-ridden cargo drifting into the bridge and ended with a disrupted European summit and the death of a high-security prisoner.

Benefits Britain: The live debate was broadcast this week. Reality television meets explosive talk show as Channel 4 use Question Time producers Mentorn to capture the reaction to their ratings hit Benefit Street . It was perfectly timed, live, at the end of the series.

On 1 January  2014, Greece assumed the rotating presidency of the EU Council. Although it is the fifth time for the county to be in charge of the European Union, holding the presidency comes at a crucial point, a critical transitional juncture for Europe.

The key won’t quite turn in the front door, my hand unsteady in its intoxicated disenchantment. My loose change has already fallen from my pocket, splashing gold and silver into the rusty wide-open drain. I fall in, switch on the fluro lights, and crash on my sofa, grasping the TV remote as I do.  The smell of beer, kebab, and stale perfume rises off my wasted body;

One of the most common questions I get asked when I am at a conference abroad is what television is like in my own country. As a researcher mainly interested in British and American television, people ask me if Spanish TV is of the same quality as English-speaking productions.

The first question that I necessarily ask myself when deciding upon case studies for the ‘Forgotten Television Drama’ project is, “Can I accurately call this programme forgotten?” Thinking about this too hard is often an invitation to indecision. A case can be made that almost any old television drama has been forgotten.

In his 1990 autobiography, Days of Vision (London: Methuen) the late television director and writer, Don Taylor, rhetorically asked what the television studio could offer that film, by then the established mode for drama production, could not. He gave the following heartfelt and poetic answer: ‘…an empty space. A prepared canvas ready to paint on; the vacuum of an open mind waiting to be filled.

Jason Jacobs and Stephen Peacock  recently published a book on TV Aesthetics – Television Aesthetics and Style – in which they argue that discourses surrounding style and aesthetics are ‘curiously absent from many critical appraisals of contemporary television’ (2013: 1). They suggest that, instead, ‘academic work on television remains, for the most part, entrenched in theoretical frameworks’ (2).

BBC-bashing is of course a venerable and well-cherished sport for the British press. A recent example was the ‘furore’ over the Corporation’s overly-enthusiastic use of Gary Barlow, particularly in his performance in Gary Barlow’s Big Ben Bash (BBC1), which aired from 11.15 on New Year’s Eve.