The Britz team of Manjinder Virk and Rizwan Ahmed shocked the establishment by scooping the Bafta Award for the Best Drama on Sunday night, beating the highly acclaimed BBC drama Cranford.

A new five-part series coming to BBC 2 next month will offer a highly individual insight into the world of Muslim women around the world.

Dubbed ‘Women in Black’, the series will offer a different ‘Islamaglamour’ perspective to hidden stories from women across the Middle East.

“Discover the Muslim makeover, sexy underwear and female Formula One racing driver in Dubai; clubbing, cosmetic surgery and surely the world’s only Qur’an inspired TV sex therapist in Egypt,” the programme blurb says.

It will explore stories in Britain, Egypt, Dubai, Yemen and Holland.

The series is authored by British-Yemeni journalist Amani Zain, has worked at the BBC’s Country File and Primary Arabic, and in Yemen as a social counsellor on a project affiliated to the UNHCR. It is produced by Fatima Salaria, who has worked at BBC current affairs for several years as a senior producer.
Continue reading…

The Asian Jewel Awards have signed up free-to-air channel Star TV as its main broadcast partner. The company said this week it would be televising all three regional Jewel Awards on Star Plus.

Now in its seventh year, the event aims to award high-achieving British Asian personalities in various fields. The Northern Jewel Awards will take place on 19th April at the Palace Hotel, Manchester; the Central Jewel Awards on 21st June at NEC Hilton, Birmingham; the Southern Jewel Awards on 4th October at Hilton Park Lane, London.

Ireland based Setanta Sports will exclusively broadcast the cricket Indian Premier League from this month, the broadcaster announced, on Sky Sports. Running from 18th April 18 to 1st June, the tournament consists of 59 matches and will see some of the biggest names in world cricket come together to form eight multi-national teams.

Some of the cricket teams have big name backing from Bollywood stars, including Shahrukh Khan, Preity Zinta and Akshay Kumar, while others have investment from businessmen.

The participants: Bangalore Royal Challengers, Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Daredevils, Deccan Chargers, Rajasthan Royals, Kolkata Knight Riders, Punjab Kings and Mumbai Indians - have attracted the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Shahid Afridi, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Younis Khan, Muttiah Muralitharan, Harbhajan Singh and Adam Gilchrist.

BB producers working on a new series of Dragons’ Den are searching for business ideas, inventions or products with serious business potential that are investment ready and looking for funding.

In the most recent series, 15 entrepreneurs received offers of investment in the Den, and plenty more have gone on to find success even without the backing of the dragons.
Continue reading…

A new series of Street Doctor airs from this week on BBC1. The popular programme starts on Wednesday April 2nd at 7.30pm and will run for 6 weeks.

In a cast of four doctors, it stars 34 year old Dr Ayan Panja who works in a busy inner city North London practice with over 4000 patients.

While the second series is aired, the BBC is filming the third series of the show.
More info: bbc.co.uk/streetdoctor

Pakistani channel Prime TV started broadcasting its long-awaited Dawn News English channel on Sky Channel 792 in the UK this week.

Dawn News was recently launched as Pakistan’s first English language channel, a subsidary of the Dawn Group of Publications.

Prime TV was the first Pakistani Channel launched in the UK also the first to broadcast news in Urdu News. Its Pakistan-based news show, fronted by British presenter Saima Mohsin, airs every week night at 9pm.
www.primetv.tv

Acclaimed Channel 4 drama Britz won the award for Best Drama Serial at the Royal Television Society awards last week. The two-part programme starred Manjinder Virk and Riz Ahmed in lead roles.

Britz is also nominated at the BAFTAs and the Broadcast Press Awards.

Also winning that night was the children’s comedy series My Life as a Popat, which features the antics of a young Asian boy and his madcap family. Among others, that features Shaheen Khan and Kulvinder Ghir as the parents.

Muslim? Single? Looking?
ITV is looking for Muslims to take part in a series about soulmate searching online
Continue reading…

A new free-to-air television channel aimed at British Asians launches next month. Brit Asia TV says it aim to “broadcast and promote Asian culture amongst British Asians” in the UK and across Europe, and will air on Sky digital.

With a mix of feature shows, music, entertainment news, chat shows, drama serials, reality TV shows and more, the station hopes to capture the lucrative young British Asian market, joining similar rivals such as Raj TV.

Director of Brit Asia TV Jaz Bal said: “This is a unique and highly entertaining television channel that will plug the gap for quality programming by British Asians for British Asians.”

The television station was originally to be called Punjabi World TV, before a change in its name and focus was made. Sources at the station say it is not affiliated with other Asian media companies and did not disclose who was funding the channel. Former Ikonz magazine editor Reena Combo has taken over as station manager.

The channel will officially go live on 7th April 2008 on channel 836 on Sky. Its studios are based in Birmingham.

Media contact: sheila@britasia.tv / reenac@britasia.tv

Blast Films is looking for talented, up and coming directors who are ready to make the step up to directing their first 30 min documentary for the Channel 4 First Cut strand.
Continue reading…

The Production Trainee Scheme is an 18-month scheme to develop the programme makers and commissioners of the future. It will give 19 exceptional people the opportunity to be trained ‘on the job’ at the BBC – those with real talent and creativity.

More on this BBC page.

Welford Primary school is in Handsworth Birmingham, one of the most troubled and racially tense areas in Britain. Today this thriving school has pupils from 17 different ethnic backgrounds. It has never had many white British pupils.

“There’s never been more than 10 within the school community of 480″ explains headmaster Chris Smith. Filmed over the autumn term at the school, The Primary follows headmaster Chris and the pupils at Welford revealing what life is like for 9 year old Nathaniel, 11 year old Alyx and their diverse peer group, Mariam, Saubia, Conrad and Xhosa.

But how is it for 11 year old Alyx whose family have been part of the school for generations and who is now one of only two white British children at the school. “My mums been to Welford my uncles been to Welford, I’ve got my nan who’s the caretaker and then now my granddad who started working here as the assistant caretaker.” As Alyx’s nan explains. ” My children came here and I wouldn’t have asked Alyx to come here if I thought there was a problem, children are children doesn’t matter what sort they are.”

The Primary - to be screened on BBC 2 on Wednesday 12th March - forms part of the channel’s White season: a season of programming focusing on life in twenty-first century Britain for the white working class. Other programmes in the season are: Last Orders, White Girl, Rivers of Blood, The Poles Are Coming and All White in Barking.

Under pressure from well known commentators such as Lenny Henry and its own non-executive director Samir Shah, the BBC recently announced it was launching a mentoring scheme to improve the number of ethnic minorities it hired at senior management level.

In a piece in the in-house magazine Ariel, the corporation has announced that 90 employees will join the programme in the next three years. Half will be from ethnic minorities, 18 will be disabled and the remaining 27 posts will be open to anyone.

Steve Kelly, the director of BBC People, said: “Because the BBC believes change is not going to happen any other way it has made the conscious decision … to create and sustain a pool of diverse talent with the credibility, confidence and competence to move into senior management roles.”

Previous coverage: BBC must do more at senior level

In a hard-hitting speech to the Royal Television Society last week, the comedian Lenny Henry said broadcasters needed to do more to encourage ethnic diversity. He said:

When I started, I was surrounded by a predominantly white workforce. Thirty-two years later, not a lot has changed,” he said in a speech to the Royal Television Society.

How many black British comedians are working on mainstream TV today? One? Two? Ethnic minorities are pitifully under-served. Is there anybody going out to the comedy clubs with their diversity goggles on? Are the researchers casting their net far and wide? This is an area that needs a massive kick up the bum.

This comes not long after BBC’s internal statistics showed that the number of ethnic minorities it employs has fallen slightly recently. That doesn’t even take into account the situation at the top. Yesterday, respected producer Samir Shah, also a BBC non-executive director, said the corporation needed to do more. He said:

The BBC is the most significant player in British broadcasting … and it needs to make a shift because its performance at senior management level is dire, absolutely dire.

Thirty years after Lenny came into the business, there is not one black person, not one Asian person good enough to be a [channel] controller. It is an outrage and I think Lenny’s call for affirmative action is the least we can do.

Some years ago the BBC had about 300 diversity initiatives, but it’s the outcome that matters. We now need to put in place some serious enforcements if we are not to have another speech [like Lenny Henry’s] in another 10 years.

In response the BBC head of diversity, Andrea Callender, told the in-house magazine Ariel that a three-year mentoring scheme for minorities was being put in place. The mentoring scheme will be no quick fix,” she said. “But in three years I would expect participants to feel their careers had been enhanced and mentors to feel they had a wider pool of talent to draw on.”

The BBC’s flagship Asian arts and entertainment series Desi DNA is back, having started last week. It will broadcast every Wednesday at 11.20pm on BBC2.

The series has broken away from its traditional three-presenters format and introducing a whole host of old and new names, including: Adil Ray, Samanthi, Parv Bancil, Nikki Bedi, Bobby Friction, Anita Rani, Tommy Sandhu, Bidisha, Gurmej Pawar, Atta Yaqub and others.

In addition will be two documentary spin offs Desi DNA : The Great British Curry Trail, presented by newcomer and self confessed “food pervert” Ravinder Bhogal following her on a journey through Britain’s curry hotspots to hear the real life stories of the people who brought curry to Britain.

Prominent British Asian personalities, historians, playwrights, authors and musicians including Sarfraz Manzoor, Nitin Sawnhey, Pooja Shah, Apache Indian, Aki Nawaz, Samira Ahmed and Ameet Chana will give us their take on an a host of subjects ranging from the Southall Riots of 1979 and Salman Rushdie controversy of the late 1980’s, through to the birth of so called “Asian Kool” in the 1990’s.

On Tuesday 9th October, digital channel Teachers TV looks at three ground-breaking projects aimed at helping Asian families overcome language difficulties and support their child’s learning. A report by the Basic Skills Agency has shown that parents with limited English often come to rely on their child’s better understanding of the language, which in turn can hinder how much they can help their child through school. Involving Asian Families in Learning follows three schemes that have been specifically designed to help families overcome language difficulties and enable the whole family to be involved in the education process.

Involving Asian Families in Learning will broadcast on Teachers TV ; on Tuesday 9th October at 8.30pm.
Repeated on Wednesday 10th October at 9.00pm.

BBC North West Tonight has a new co-presenter sitting alongside Gordon Burns from this month as part of a major re-launch of the programme. Ranvir Singh, who is already a familiar face on breakfast and late night bulletins, will join Gordon in a new look studio for the nightly news programme on BBC One.

Born in Preston and educated at Lancaster University, where she studied English and philosophy, Ranvir has spent all of her professional career with the BBC. After her degree she returned to Preston to complete a postgraduate qualification in journalism before beginning her broadcasting career at BBC Radio Lancashire, after being offered a six-month contract while still on work experience.

She subsequently moved on to BBC GMR (now Radio Manchester) in time for the 2002 Commonwealth Games. Ranvir then moved on to television and played a key role in presenting the nationally broadcast Manchester Passion on Good Friday, 2006. She also reported on the Election Night Special with David Dimbleby last year in Blackburn for BBC One. She is currently North West Tonight’s education reporter.

Cooking isn’t Rocket Science, a 40-episode cookery series on British food, will air on NDTV’s soon-to-be-launched Lifestyle channel in India. British food has never been considered gourmet - in fact, popular perception is that it’s quite the opposite.

But the show’s host, Manju Malhi, one of Britain’s popular chefs, reveals that there’s more to British food than the standard fish and chips. Reputed for being a unique cross-over gourmet, Manju unveils her tempting recipes for bangers and mash, lamb chops, a typical English breakfast, muffins, the Queen’s tea, mango crumble, baked beans balti, couscous salad, the Scottish dessert Cranachan, and a lot more. It will teach viewers how to prepare classic British dishes with readily accessible local ingredients in India.

Manju Malhi won the BBC Food and Drink’s competition in 1999, and cooked with Antony Worrall Thompson on BBC2 and was invited back a second time. Her ‘Simply Indian’ series was aired on the Taste Network in early 2001 and award-winning book Brit Spice was published in 2002 by Penguin Books.

Are you a single woman who’d love to get married, have made plans for her wedding day but are yet to find Mr Right? Or are you getting married even though you haven’t been asked? Are you in the process of planning your big day but are yet to be asked by your boyfriend? Are you tired of waiting and have made plans anyway?

This for a heart felt documentary looking at women’s dream and aspirations of their wedding day. We’re looking for confident, cosmopolitan woman who have visualized their ideal wedding and are now working towards getting it. If that’s you or someone you know a UK TV documentary company would like to hear from you!
Please call Lauren on 020 7272 4000 or email: hello@vgoodfilms.com for a chat.

Do you fight over the remote - but is there something you all watch as a family? Are you sick of the way Asians are represented on the box?
Do you talk to the TV, even when you’re alone? Or are you a Bollywood film nut? If you are interested in taking part in a short Channel 4 film about people watching television, then get in touch at tv@centuryfilmsltd.com

Two music videos with a difference have received nominations for a prestigious Royal Television Society Award. Here’s the twist; both ‘Change The Way’ and ‘One Life To Live’ were made by inmates at Swinfen Hall, a youth offenders institute in Lichfield, Staffordshire, as part of the ground-breaking Sonic [db] project.

Wolverhampton based filmmakers, Rainmaker-VF, worked alongside musician Keith Dilworth and facilitator Sharon Jones of Handsworth based ‘Sister Tree’ to help the troubled young men make their music videos. The Rainmaker filmmaking team were comprised of Davinder Claire, Alex Crowton and Balwant Dass.

The Royal Television Society Awards take place on October 27th 2007.

London based filmmaker Waris Islam has been recruited to direct some episodes for the ITV television soap Hollyoaks, landing some major storylines.

Islam has previously written for Asian Network’s soap Silver Street and made the short film Family Portrait. He has also written a 30 minute Channel 4 drama to air early next year.

A new television series featuring short clips called Indique - Untold Stories of Contemporary India (below), has been created by Blood Orange Media, a US based company. Indique is airing on PBS in the US, with select segments of the show airing on international airlines, including Northwest Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, and Jet Airways. The Indique Youtube clip below was created by Asia Society.

Narrowstep Inc, an internet based television company has launched a channel specifically aimed at the worldwide Indian diaspora, called Watch India. Watch India allows viewers to access popular Indian programming in TV-like quality over the Internet. This new channel features an assortment of video content powered by Narrowstep’s Internet TV platform, telvOS™.