BBC

"The UK is sleepwalking towards a serious, long term weakening of its TV production industry," said Hall, in front of a DCMS committee in Westminster on Tuesday November 7th .

Hall proposed the idea of a new, paid-for on-demand service featuring BBC programming, following the closure of the BBC Store after only 18 months.

The appetite for video on demand (VOD) and other third-party platforms is growing in the UK and abroad, in what is a rapidly changing TV market.

Jonathan Dimbleby was in the chair to lead a 90-minute discussion – “Have We Got News for You?” – on the future of local news in the regions. The panellists were journalist and academic Roy Greenslade; controller of BBC English Regions David Holdsworth; Ujima FM station manager Julz Davis; and Trinity Mirror editor Rachel Sugden.

The event featured filmed provocations from Richard Sambrook, director of the Centre for Journalism at Cardiff University, who charted the decline in print media and argued that there was a lack of local accountability.

From Blue Planet II to Stranger Things, here's what's coming up this week

Documentary: Gordon Ramsey on Cocaine

Thursday

ITV, 9pm

Cocaine use is spiraling ot of control in the UK, says Gordon Ramsey, and the celebrity chef is on a mission to de-glamourise the drug. The UK now consumes more cocaine than anywhere else in Europe, he finds. 

Whether you're staying in to avoid any surprises that Friday the 13th has in store or you're relishing the prospect of spooky TV delights, the BBC has six creepy comedy shorts ready to see you through the night. 

“Genres go through cycles and I feel a lack of confidence about the genre at the moment across British broadcasting,” argued the BBC’s history commissioner Tom McDonald.

The exec, who also commissions specialist factual and natural history shows for the BBC, praised the efforts of other broadcasters – “When Channel 4 do history they do it very well and differently to us; Channel 5 do some really fantastic history” – but he added that “the ecosystem only works if everyone is doing it.

“I don’t worry about finding the next generation of on-screen historians,” he continued.

Gunpowder is set in the 17th century during the reign of King James I, at a time of social unrest and in the midst of a war with Catholic Spain.

Despite many unsuccessful attempts to kill the new king, a plot was formed that went on to become one of the most notorious assassination attempts in English history: The Gunpowder Plot.

This week's TV picks includes new time travel comedy Timewasters, the return of BBC drama Our Girl, a doc exploring the crucial hour in a murder investigation, and celebrity fugitives in Celebrity Hunted.

The evidence is already clear that millennials largely ignore the news coverage of the traditional UK TV networks, said the Radio 4 Today presenter.

Unless broadcasters raise their game, Robinson said, there was a risk that quality news organisations like the BBC, ITN and Sky News would lose future generations of listeners and viewers.

Robinson, a former BBC and ITN political editor, said that erosion of trust in public institutions and the rise of alternative sources of news meant that traditional broadcasters needed to try harder.