Press site weekly round-up, 18th June 2012

18 June 2012

The Queen's annual birthday honours list was published on Saturday. There has since been a riveting Twitter spat between Alastair Campbell and Armando Iannucci about whether the latter should have accepted the honour, thus supposedly joining the establishment he purports to mock.

Many* of you have sent me shocked emails commenting on my absence from the honours list yet again (as if services to press websites was less important than raising money for charity or saving lives - tsk). All I will say is this - I see myself as a heroically anti-establishment figure. So if I had been offered an honour - say, a knighthood - I would have turned it down. I'm definitely, definitely not saying that happened. But I couldn't swear to you that it didn't happen**.

Nevertheless, there has been much rejoicing here at Channel 4 with the news that our Chief Operating Officer, Anne Bulford, has been awarded an OBE. In many senses, I see this as an award for all of us. Mostly me, actually. But Anne a little bit as well. So well done, Anne. And me.

Here's what else you may have missed in the last week.

 

News:
The future of advertising is here, courtesy of new video ad formats announced on 4oD. We also appointed Gillian Wilson to be Head of Features, and Lina Prestwood to be commissioning editor for First Cut. Well done to both! At the end of last week, we also announced the presence on Twitter of a remarkable man called Tony Nicklinson. He has locked-in syndrome. His story is told on tonight's Dispatches.

And finally, in a change of tone that is in no way awkward, those cheeky scamps The Midnight Beast are threatening to get their tackle out. Filth.

 

New commissions:
If you like comedy, don't go anywhere in August. Channel 4's Funny Fortnight will see over 30 hours of comedy broadcast over - you guessed it - a fortnight. Meanwhile, there's a new Sarah Beeny series in the offing, in which she tries to become a professional footballer in just three weeks. Not really - she's doing what she does best, dipping more than a toe into the housing market. More4 has also signed brilliant chef Yottam Ottolenghi to present a new series, and commissioned another series, Spice Trip, looking into the world of (duh) spices. We also announced a raft of new Cutting Edge films, and a series called Jews at Ten, a ‘romp through Jewish culture'.

 

Video:
The Dispatches story about Tony Nicklinson features a video, and we've added a trail for Gordon Ramsay's new series, Gordon Behind Bars. Embeds are available for both.

 

Programme information:
Yep, here's some of that.

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Finally, because there's always room for a bit of romance in life, have a watch of this. Awwwww.

 

*None

**I probably could, actually.