The great and the good of the TV industry celebrated the 50th birthday of trade title Broadcast last night at a party at the Hospital club in central London. Among the telly execs who joined the phalanx of former Broadcast hacks at the bash were the BBC director of vision, Jana Bennett, the BBC director of archive content and the former BBC2 controller, Roly Keating, and the ITV2 controller, Zai Bennett. Bennett, who has hit the headlines over the years over stories including Crowngate to her stolen handbag, was at one point chatting away with the former RDF creative director, Stephen Lambert, who had to resign after wrongly editing the footage of the Queen for a BBC promo. The ensuing scandal, dubbed Crowngate, led to the departures of the BBC1 controller, Peter Fincham, and his head of press, Jane Fletcher. Bennett escaped with a ticking off in the official report. Despite the previous, Bennett and Lambert looked like they were getting on like a house on fire. That is, until the event's photographer started snapping away, prompting Bennett to flinch and get out of the way, before she put on her happy face and allowed her pic to be taken. That's the spirit!
A rebrand too far?
It seems that the world of archive content might soon be getting a rebrand at the BBC. The fusty image of archive material lacks the glamour of other areas of telly, even though it can yield hundreds of hours of televisual gems. Monkey hears that the BBC team in charge of the archive think a new name = new lease of life. What a shame Television Heaven is already taken. Ideas on a postcard.
My son the comedian
Earlier, the media circus began the night at the E4 autumn launch in a pub just around the corner from the Guardian's home in King's Cross (handy). A heavily pregnant head of E4, Angela Jain, opened the night, but admitted that she had forgotten most of what she planned to say (thankfully she had a few prompt cards to hand). New shows, including Misfits about a group of Skins-like characters who find they have random superpowers, which actually looked quite fun. New sketch show School of Comedy made an even bigger impression, with the cast performing sketches live in front of the assembled audience. And there was no one prouder in the crowd than Andy Harries, who as well as producing the show through his firm Left Bank Pictures is also the father of one of its young stars, Jack Harries.