BBC Two

Matt LeBlanc confirms Top Gear hosting duties in two-series deal

Top Gear was relaunched in May this year with LeBlanc and Radio 2 DJ Chris Evans fronting the broadcaster's flagship motoring show. The pair were supported by motorsport boss Eddie Jordan, champion driver Sabine Schmitz, and journalists Chris Harris and Rory Reid over the series' six-week run.

Versailles: The price of success for French TV drama

The tale of two multi-million-euro drama series speaks volumes about the tensions and turmoil shaking the French television industry. One is Versailles, a quintessentially French historical topic, shot in France with a French crew but produced for Canal+ in English. The show, labelled “primetime porn” thanks to its racy portrayal of life at the court of the Sun King, was created by an English writing team and mainly starred British actors barely known in France.

Great British Menu returns to BBC Two

BBC, Great British Menu, Food, Houses of Parliament

More than 20 chefs will compete in a series of eight regional heats and will be judged by eight past competition winners, now some of the most in-demand chefs in the UK.

The two highest scoring chefs according to the veteran judges will go head-to-head, presenting their four-course menus to award-winning restaurant critic Matthew Fort, queen of British cookery Prue Leith and acclaimed restaurateur Oliver Peyton.

Each week the judges are joined by an expert guest judge including food critics, restaurateurs and chefs.

Final preparations underway for RTS Programme Awards 2016

Ant and Dec are nominated for the Entertainment Performance award and will battle it out against The Last Leg's Adam Hills and A League Of Their Own's Jack Whitehall. The Last Leg also receives a nomination for Entertainment programme where it will complete against Release the Hounds and The Graham Norton Show. 

Pat Younge's TV Diary

Pat Younge, Sugar Films, RTS Cambridge, television, production,

Start the week reviewing Sugar Films’ cash flow and trying to get my head around a new accounting software system. Any of my former CFOs will know that I wasn’t put on planet Earth to do this, but I plough on gamely.

One of the things I discover is that the BBC pitch system doesn’t tell you when a commissioner has been made redundant. So an idea that I thought must be getting lots of consideration has actually been languishing, lonely and unread, in a dead Dropbox on the BBC server. Note to self – don’t take it personally.