... Red letter day for yuppie programming INDEPENDENT television's latest scheduling salvo against the BBC's popular soap EastEnders has signalled a fresh confidence in popularist, yuppie television tailored to maximise audience levels, writes Chris Hughes. The network committee's surprise decision to lift an upmarket quiz show from the Tyne Tees region and place it in what has previously been ...

... Unseen winners THE SID ROBERTS Silver Award for the best drama or light entertainment programme produced by an ITV com pany has been awarded to Menace Unseen, starring Ian Ogilvy and Judi Bowker. Menace Unseen, described as a com puter crime thriller and made by Anglia Television, was shown on the ITV network in May this year and attracted over half the total TV audience. ...

... Days of satellite THE EUROPEAN Satellite Com munications conference will run for two days, December 1 and 2 at the BAFTA headquarters in Piccadilly. The confer ence will examine the new range of services open to those in telecom munications, following the govern ment's recent decision to grant licenses to six specialist satellite services. Industry leaders will be discussing the future and ...

... Right waveband BBC Radio 2 and BBC Local Radio are once again on the look-out for the best Big Band as the National Big Band Competition swings into its 13th year. The competition aims to stimulate the Big Band movement, to encourage an enthusiasm for Big Band music and to establish contact between bands and local and regional radio stations. ...

... STV's film school first for the arts STV HAS introduced a new arts sponsorship deal for students, based at the National Film School. The scheme, to be called The Scottish TV NFTS Bursary, was created by three main bodies; Scot tish TV, The Business Sponsorship Incentive Scheme and the Scottish Film Training Trust. STV boasts it as a first in its commitment to long term arts spon sorship. The ...

... NCROPA attacks His Royal Ignorance THE NATIONAL Campaign for the Reform of the Obscene Publications Acts has labelled Prince Charles 'His Royal Ignor ance' for claiming there is too much gratuitous violence on TV and cinema screens. Director of NCROPA David Webb has described Prince Charles' remarks as at best ill-informed and at worst ignorant. The anti- censorship pressure group has writ ...

... CHANNEL4 Whose Line is it Anyway? ONE GOOD question deserves another. Who cares? This is a television version of Radio Four's comedy improvisation program me of the same name, in which a panel of players ad-lib their way through a series of improvisation games. As a word show it works on radio but gains little from being adapted and transferred to the television screen. That would appear an ...

... Around The World In 80 Days BBC 1 IT COULDN'T have happened to a nicer chap. Tip top British stock, and all that. The BBC called up Monty Python survivor Michael Palin and asked How do you fancy becoming a modern Phileas Fogg and, without using aircraft see whether you can race round the world in 80 days? Palin, a frustrated explorer anyway, thought that sounded like job security so accepted ...

... Double act delights JAMES GREEN breaks a comic mould BBC 2 Small Doses CHEERS for something different in the TV schedules. This is a scries of four weekly 20-minute comedy- dramas. They are all two-handers starring the old Oxbridge firm of Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. For a start, 15 to 20 minutes is a strange length, and the shows are nothing like sit-com much more ambi tious than sketches ...

... Red King, White Knight CENTRAL GREAT idea! Let's do Day of the Jackal only we'll set it in the present Anxt and rinlorp IV Hnillp with Gorbachev. Of course it will be easy to get American money. One can imagine the genius who came up with this one chatting to his chums in a Soho wine bar. The result is two hours of big budget post cold war thriller and they didn't even have to make up the plot ...

... All Creatures Great And Small BBC 1 WHAT with the pace, hassles, frustra tions and demands of life today, there has to be room on the TV screen for a leisurely series set in the countryside at a time not so long ago when ethics and the old traditional values mattered. As an antidote to the cops-and- robbers, the screech of alternative com edy, the violence of news bulletins, and the greed of ...

... Sweet as You Are BBC 2 IT COULD happen to anyone, any where, a family suddenly torn apart hy AIDS, a fact pushed home in Sweet as You are. in which the disease is removed from the ghetto and hurled into middle class respectability. The Perry family are apparently ordinary, decent citizens, until Martin is found to he an AIDS carrier. As television drama it is lean and ominous, with a power ...