I’ll always remember my initial reaction the first time I watched Absolutely Fabulous (BBC, 1992-2012). Edina Monsoon (played by co-creator Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy Stone (played by former model and co-star Joanna Lumley) appeared to be the rudest, crudest and strangest women I ever saw on television.

Network’s 12-disc collection *ITV 60: Celebrating Sixty Years of ITV * is a curious exercise. A compilation of 60 ITV programmes to mark the channel’s sixtieth anniversary, its selections derive from three separate sources.

So here’s a list of show titles for you: The X-Files, Twin Peaks, Prison Break, The A-Team, Hart to Hart, Gilmore Girls, Star Trek, Full House, and Magyver.  Looking at it, you might think that this was a catalog of DVD box sets or, perhaps, the line-up for another one of those cable channels devoted entirely to reruns.

As I write, I’m on the road in Colombia from Barranquilla (see this impressive citizen journalist seeking to enter Shakira’s home there) to Cartagena de Indias, which Francis Drake briefly captured from the Spanish in 1586.

With recent debates and discussions surrounding the government’s Green Paper and the BBC’s Charter review (how the BBC should be funded; whether it distorts the market; if it should be self-regulated; and so on.) I have found it quite easy to become lost in arbitrary and abstract notions such as “value for money” based on my naturally biased consumption of BBC products and services.

Providing a certain sense of symmetry, my first blog of the academic year returns to the same theme I examined way back in July, when I looked at options for bringing ‘old’ TV into the digital age.

Beginning with the young single mother Nancy in ‘The Empty Child’ (2005)* *Steven Moffat’s *Doctor Who *stories have often included strongly written female characters. His creation of female roles reached new levels of variety and controversy with his transformation of the Master into the Mistress, or Missy for short.

This article is the result of a recent, but brief conversation with Matt Hills on Facebook, where we discussed the merits of the BBC’s Sherlock and fandom.

I am long overdue a new television set. To my embarrassment, my television set is second hand, occasionally cuts out and sits atop an ugly prefabricated television stand that clashes with the surrounding 1950s-era furniture.  I have considered purchasing a 1950s-era television set but it would not, of course, be WiFi enabled and internet-ready.

August 11, 2015 is the day *Pretty Little Liars *(2010-) unmasked ‘A’, a day five years in the making: (Spoiler) ‘A’ is CeCe Drake (Vanessa Ray) on PLL . I write about this reveal not just from a personal investment in the show or because it comprises a part of my PhD dissertation, but because of how the reveal divided the fandom and the popular entertainment news media.

’ve spent what little time I’ve had recently on the ADAPT TV History project trawling through the BBC Internet blog on topics to do with innovation and social media (I say what little time I have, as for heads of department like me, time is increasingly dominated by TEF (let alone REF), consumer compliance law and our new duties to prevent studies from being ‘drawn into terrorism’). In any case, this has hampered my ability