Author: CSTonline

Dear Britain, On behalf of Australia, I’m really sorry about Neighbours. Honestly, we had no idea that a little soapie based in a fictional place outside Melbourne would go for so long. We had no idea you’d love it as much as...

Hello darkness, my old friend I’ve come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted In my brain still remains Within the sound of silence  ...

Easter being the time of resurrection, I spent part of the break uploading to YouTube some of the programmes I produced for Channel 4 in the 1980s and 1990s. So there is now a Large Door channelfor our moribund independent...

No, I’m not planning to write about Goggle Box  -although I’m constantly struck by the contrast between the high-pitched engagement of the sofa-sitters (after all it did win the 2014  BAFTA award for ‘constructed factual’...

University of Westminster at Alexandra Palace, 19-20 February 2015 Few forms of TV drama have historically been more neglected within television studies than the adapted stage play. With the exception of Jeremy Ridgman’s handy...

Unlike an increasing number of colleagues, my television viewing is still largely tied to the broadcast schedule. This is entirely due to my being a creature of habit; while I am willing and able to adapt to the new, it’s...

I’ve always enjoyed action-adventure, especially swashbuckling action-adventure. Admittedly, though, when the BBC’s new drama The Musketeers (2014-) began last year I didn’t have high expectations. The BBC’s attempts at...

I have watched pretty much every episode of the medical reality show 24 Hours in A&E (Channel 4, 2011–). Even though much of my research happens to focus on medico-scientific discourses in contemporary television, this is a...

The Royal Television Society Huw Wheldon Memorial Lecture recently broadcast on BBC4 and titled ‘Public Service Broadcasting: A House of Cards?’  reflected on the changing landscape of broadcast television in light of...

I quite often think of myself as an old-fashioned structuralist (as my 1981 essay on narrative and Coronation Street showed) and am quite embarrassed to think about the number of first year students I attempted to introduce to...

In a recent discussion about war on film and television (I probably steer discussions in this direction more often than my friends and family would like), a friend made the point that ‘war is war’.  I have been thinking about...

Last September, an interesting debate played out in the landscape of American media criticism. It was catalysed by film critic A.O. Scott’s article in the New York Times entitled ‘The Death of Adulthood in American Culture’. The...

Cathy Johnson and Karen Boyle’s recent blog posts on Working Ourselves and Others to Death have generated an animated and, in my eyes, helpful debate that has also allowed me to take stock on where some of my colleagues and...