Britain is hooked on Halloween and Traitors – and that’s a recession indicator Opinion Halloween has become big business, and Celebrity Traitors proves it. But this cultural obsession reveals something very wrong with the British economy, writes Matt Kenyon Just after 8pm last Saturday, it struck me that every single person on the Northern line train to Tooting was not just in a Halloween costume, but in an elaborate [...]
Could The Traitors fall victim to reality TV fatigue? Opinion With the regular series returning in the new year, could The Traitors fall victim to reality TV fatigue, asks Dean Rodgers.
MPs call for free-to-air Rugby League World Cup matches Sport Business MPs have called on the government to make matches at the Rugby League World Cup free-to-air and protected for the foreseeable future. This year’s competition, taking place in Australia, is being broadcast behind a paywall on Premier Sports after the BBC declined to cough up to show the tournament. Jon Trickett MP said: “The problem [...]
A Rugby League World Cup starts this week and you didn’t know. That’s a huge problem October 13, 2026 Did you know the Rugby League World Cup starts this week? If you’re reading this in the north of England then the answer is probably yes. If down south then I suspect the answer is much more likely to be no. This is a huge problem. Rugby league has one of the most watchable products [...]
Track Radio raising £3m as it eyes marketing, network and programming push October 8, 2026 Challenger sport and music station Track Radio is in talks to raise a further £3m in funding as it plots a marketing push and expansion of its DAB coverage. The start-up, which launched in May with a heavyweight broadcaster line-up including Mark Pougatch, Sonja McLaughlan and Vassos Alexander, is understood to be in talks with [...]
BBC should be aggregator of best free sports content – or risk sinking for good October 8, 2026 YouTube serves up live sport galore so why can’t the BBC do the same, with a more selective approach that fulfils its public service remit, asks Ed Warner. I’ve no problem with paying £180 for my annual TV licence. Gets me Celebrity Traitors and Blue Lights, after all. Plus the Shipping Forecast to wake up [...]
The BBC’s bulletin cuts show how crowded sports broadcasting has become October 4, 2026 The BBC’s decision to drop lunchtime and overnight sports bulletins from its news channel has rightly had a few journalists loosening their collars. Savings must be found, but will people miss the content? It really reflects how crowded the race for sports audiences has become. Broadcasters used to be the thoroughbreds, with competitors left in [...]
‘Knock that dead’: Burnham rules out calling early election September 25, 2026 Andy Burnham has said the next election will be in 2029 as he ruled out an early snap vote during interviews with local broadcasters. In an interview with ITV North West and Yorkshire, Burnham confirmed that the next General Election would take place at the end of this parliament. Reports suggested that Number 10 was [...]
Revealed: BBC bid just £900k for £5m Commonwealth Games TV rights September 2, 2026 Commonwealth Games chiefs took flak for agreeing a broadcast deal with TNT Sports that put it behind a paywall for the first time in 72 years – but City AM can reveal the BBC offered less than £1m for the rights. The BBC’s bid of around £900,000 represented a 91 per cent decrease on the [...]
Not enough bums in Brum: Why so many empty seats at European Athletics Championships? August 13, 2026 Britain loves sport yet ticket sales for the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham have been slow. Ed Warner wonders why. British sport has a capacity problem or a bandwidth one, depending on which way you want to look at it. Too many seats in too many venues with too few bums to fill them. Or [...]