Press Site weekly round-up, 15th May 2012

15 May 2012

Wow! I know it's old news now, but what a stunning conclusion that was to another year of thrills, spills and excitement. With the entire world watching, breath bated and nails chewed, the excitement and tension was almost unbearable. But what a result! What a glorious, stunning, unbelievable result!

I mean, for Channel 4 to record a surplus of £34.5m after tax in such a challenging economic climate was truly remarkable. Eh? What did you think we were talking about? Football? Didn't even know it was going on. I'm a Luge man, myself.

 

News:

We published our Annual Report. And it was good. People insisted on waffling on about a record investment in UK content, and the amazing feat of combining creative and commercial success, but all I could think was "Kerching - that's a refit for my yacht (Hollyoaks) right there. Walnut finish and all!"

We also launched a brilliant new website called Scrapbook, a fantastic opportunity to copy, store and share all the best tips from Channel 4's brilliant Lifestyle presenters. It's a thing of great beauty.

We announced a new Film4 development fund for British comedy films - after all, comedy is what we Brits do best (along with binge-drinking, phone-hacking and queuing, though not luging, to my eternal disappointment).

And we won some very exciting awards. There were three One World Media awards, which recognise media coverage of the developing world, which is obviously massively important to us (I like to look at these places sometimes from the deck of Hollyoaks). And we won an extraordinary three Roses d'Or, making us the most winningest broadcaster is the whole of the world (and therefore almost certainly the entire Universe).

And (always leave readers on a high note) yesterday we published a release for a Dispatches outlining how easily our private data, such as medical records, are for sale. Woo hoo! Oh...

 

New commissions:

We used the occasion of our Annual Report to announce a whole raft of new commissions (Why a raft? Why not a hydrofoil? Or a donkey cart?) New commissions included (deep breath): 4 Goes Mad season, Hotel Britannia, The Intern, The Fear, Here and There, Utopia, Complicit, My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary, Run, and recommissions for Fish Fight, Fresh Meat and Top Boy. But these are just names. Go and read about them. Let them take wing and fly through the endless blue skies of your imagination. Or, at the very least, go and read about them. Here, here and here.

Earlier in the week, we also announced new commissions 999: What's Your Emergency (w/t), The Unseen Frankie Howerd, and Derek, from the pen of a young comic upstart called Ricky Gervais.

 

Programme information:
As always, there's some of that.

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Peeeep. There's the final whistle (as we lugers say). And the winner is: You the viewer. (And Miguel, the man refitting my yacht).