Word: thompsons
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That scandal claimed the scalp of BBC1 boss Peter Fincham, who resigned on Oct.�5. Two weeks later, BBC director-general Mark Thompson announced plans to kill off some 2,500 jobs, mostly in news and nonfiction programming, and to sell the BBC's iconic West London headquarters, Television Centre. Management is now trawling its staff for volunteers for layoffs. Says Roy Greenslade, a former editor of the Daily Mirror newspaper and currently a journalism professor at London's City University: "The BBC's problems are manifold. There are more dramas at the BBC than ever get shown...
...Thompson's new plan reduces staffing (23,000 before the new round of cuts) and budgets but leaves the range of activities pretty much intact. There's a constant tension between the BBC's aim of making what Byford calls "brilliant, outstanding, special, standout content" and the need to justify its existence by attracting mass audiences, which, as Fox Television has proved, tend to gather at the bottom of the taste pyramid. Consider the huge popularity of reality TV, which is cheap to produce and capable of provoking controversy that hooks big audiences. Controversy is, of course, hard to control...
...vision for the BBC articulated by Thompson is that it will go on doing what it has been doing but with fewer people, a greater impact and higher standards. Quality is the key, whether it's straight news or comedy that spills out of a character's absurdly tight latex outfit. It's the only way the Beeb can bear out this claim by Byford: "The BBC is here to make the world a better place." Perhaps it has to start at home...
...directed by Nathan D. Johnson ’09 and Allegra M. Richards ’09, set-designed by Courtney S. Thompson ’09, and produced by Kimberly D. Hagan ’09, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” turned out not to be the expected play about societal themes, but instead a brilliant rendering of a family’s private and inter-personal tensions. The production will be playing in the Loeb Experimental Theater November 9 through...
...Giamatti, Bates, Weisz, Richardson, Spacey, and Vaughn—delivers strong, impassioned performances, especially in light of the weak dialogue and story line they’re faced with. Vaughn’s interactions with an orphan boy named Slam, played by Bobb’e J. Thompson, stand out as particularly cute with a capital K. “Fred Claus” is not a movie one buys and adds to the family collection alongside “Christmas Vacation” or “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Instead, the film joins...