‘Countdown’ Audiences In Awe As Student Becomes Highest-Scoring Contestant In 40 Years

A lettuce wearing a wig has provided much relief for UK people exhausted by the ongoing chaos at the heart of government. 

The BFI today published the full details of its new National Lottery Audience Projects Fund, a £15m ($17 Million) pool of cash available over three years to support growth in the UK exhibition and distribution sector to cultivate audiences for UK independent film and XR/broader screen work.

Greg Gutfeld, a punk-rock loving, former men’s magazine firebrand, knows he’s a divisive figure and I’m pretty sure he likes it that way.

A major public consultation designed to shape the future of the historic heart of Chinatown in Manchester city centre has been launched.

Liza Foreman The 30th MipJunior, the international kids content market, opened Saturday with the presentation Binge Watching Session: Kids Audience Successes Around the Globe. Presented by industry analyst Avril Blondelot, the head of content insight Paris-based Global Audience & Content Evolution (Glance), the colorful overview presented the latest hits for kids and tipped off the audience on upcoming shows to track.  “The trend towards reboots isn’t going away anywhere soon,” she told Variety in Cannes, citing the global success of the reboot of 80s’ hit “The Smurfs.”

Striking new low test scores on ACT college admissions test further illustrate the devastating impact of the COVID shutdowns on education and raise questions about high school students' readiness for higher education. Scores on the ACT college admissions test by this year's high school graduates hit their lowest point in more than 30 years.The class of 2022's average ACT composite score was 19.8 out of 36, marking the first time since 1991 that the average score was below 20.

Following its debut as the opening night gala at the London Film Festival last week, Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical now has an official trailer – check it out above.

Scores on the ACT college admissions test by this year's high school graduates hit their lowest point in more than 30 years — the latest evidence of the enormity of learning disruption during the pandemic. The class of 2022's average ACT composite score was 19.8 out of 36, marking the first time since 1991 that the average score was below 20.

Manori Ravindran International Editor Netflix has signed up to U.K. ratings body BARB in what is a massive coup for TV audience measurement in Britain. BARB, an acronym for the Broadcasters Audience Research Board, claims to be the first industry-owned audience currency in the world that Netflix has joined. While BARB has technically been reporting on streaming numbers in the U.K. for a year now — numbers that have only been available to its broadcaster clients and prohibited from being published — it’s been doing so without the involvement of Netflix and Amazon as clients. (Disney+ is already signed up.) This is all going to change, however, with Netflix now willingly signing up to the ratings body. This means that, from Nov. 1, BARB will report Netflix viewing — in addition to streamers such as Disney+ — every day at both a service and a program level. This will be in the same way it reports viewing for more than 300 broadcast channels, broadcast video-on-demand (BVOD) platforms and advertising and subscription video-on-demand (AVOD/SVOD) services.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief International streaming company Netflix has unveiled six new titles representing its first wide-ranging slate of content from Thailand. Its four films and two series span the comedy, suspense and comedy drama genres and hail from six different local production firms – GMM Studios, International, GDH, Song Sound Productions, Transformation Films, 18 Tanwa and Jungka Bangkok. Significantly, too, they are sourced from established directors or producers. Writer-director Prueksa Amaruji’s dark comedy film “Lost Lotteries” is produced by Ekachai Uekrongtham (“Beautiful Boxer,” “Pleasure Factory”) and will stream from mid-November.

I'm A Celebrity. . .

2 min read Liverpool has been named as the Host City of the 67th Eurovision Song Contest, following a competitive bidding process by cities across England.

Liverpool has been selected as host city for the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest, the wildly popular music competition that will be entering its 67th year. The city of the Beatles won out Friday over Glasgow, the fellow finalist from a shortlist of UK cities that included Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield.

Actor Anthony Rapp began testifying today in his sexual misconduct lawsuit against Kevin Spacey, with initial questioning covering only his upbringing in the Chicago suburbs before the court took a lunch recess.