‘The Boys,’ ‘House of the Dragon’ and More Genre TV Shows Hoping to Break Through at Emmys

The One Show's Alex Jones and Jermaine Jenas had to ask BBC producers to step in after they couldn't settle a debate.

Harry and Meghan have finally handed back the keys of their former residence Frogmore Cottage to the King yesterday almost six months after being handed their eviction notice.

Murray Primary School in East Kilbride has received a glowing report following inspection.

A new school badge has been unveiled at Hillhead Primary School in Kilmarnock at their recent community fun day, Summer Safari.

With summer here, lots of people are looking to shed a few pounds before they head on holiday.

Delays to decisions on Scottish Government funding to replace two run-down primary school buildings in Livingston have been criticised by West Lothian Council’s Conservative group leader.

A woman who was raped by a former aide to two Prime Ministers is desperate to stop her attacker being moved to an open prison.

Callum McLennan Screen legend Ron Perlman looks set to take a leading role in an adaptation of Carlos Augusto Casas’s award winning novel, ‘Ya no quedan junglas adonde regresar,’ whose big screen adaptation rights have been secured by producer Álvaro Ariza’s production company, Esto También Pasará. The novel’s cinematic adaptation will mark the debut narrative feature film as a director of Gabriel Beristain, a seasoned Mexican cinematographer known for “Agent Carter” and his work with illustrious directors such as Guillermo del Toro, David Ayer and David Mamet. His early work with Derek Jarman on “Caravaggio,” won a Silver Bear at Berlin.

Jon Hamm is joining former Hollywood bachelors, including George Clooney and Hugh Grant, who eventually said "I do." Hamm, 52 and Anna Osceola, 35, tied the knot June 24 in Big Sur, California, People magazine reported. Hamm was previously in an 18-year relationship with Jennifer Westfeldt and never made their union official.

Paramount+ is making a UK TV drama about a woman whose butter-wouldn’t-melt husband is arrested for the murder of his former assistant, while the streamer has entered production on French series The Signal.

K.J. Yossman Louis Theroux will deliver this year’s James MacTaggart memorial lecture, the flagship address at the Edinburgh TV Festival. The documentary maker, who also founded unscripted production company Mindhouse in 2019, has examined everything from Scientology to porn to neo-Nazis in his films. He has also turned his hand to social media, podcasting and streaming. Theroux will address the challenges broadcasters face in today’s “multi-platform universe,” how he has maintained longevity after a quarter of a century in the broadcasting industry and the pros and cons of the tech revolution we are all living through.

Netflix's hit fantasy drama The Witcher has returned with its highly-anticipated third season.

Police are working to identify a man whose body was pulled from water in Rochdale.

Coronation Street fans have demanded that Dame Maureen Lipman's wages are raised after her latest stellar performance in the ITV soap as Evelyn Plummer. The usually no-nonsense character was seen breaking into tears during the latest trip to Weatherfield as she was confronted by her daughter, Cassandra.

Alan Brazil has asked whether Jota could be the Celtic man to make the step towards Premier League football as Ally McCoist insists Cameron Carter-Vickers is THE key man for the Hoops.

A holidaymaker says that she was stopped from flying home after TUI staff told her she'd been blacklisted because of a minor toilet row. Victoria Devorie, 44, was checking in for her journey home from Jamaica when she discovered staff placed her on a banned list following her outbound flight.

A Lanarkshire man was snared with more than £6,000 of cocaine in his car and home.

The heartbroken family of a Scots dad have spoken of their grief and shock following his sudden death. Wedding singer Stephen McCluskey, from Airdrie, had been preparing to sing at wrestler and comedian Grado's wedding before falling unwell on June 6.

Tyson Fury has been spotted galavanting around Edinburgh - tucking into an ice cream and a drink in one of the capital's trendy bars.

After a rather subdued start to season 3 last week, the spinoff series,, packed more of an emotional punch this week. As Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) is asked to narrate the audiobook version of her book about the death of her husband, Mr.

A 'red wall' Rochdale MP is standing down at the next election — only a few years after being voted in.

A woman was forced to spend thousands of pounds to return home from her holiday in the Caribbean island after she claims she was 'banned' from her TUI flight.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The board of the European Film Academy – the organization behind the European Film Awards – has decided to restructure board membership for 2024. The change will ensure an equal voice for different parts of Europe in strategic decisions. From the upcoming elections onwards, representatives on the board will be chosen from 15 regions in Europe. The move is designed to give a more equal distribution of voices from across Europe on the board. The restructuring will take place in two stages, allowing current board members elected in December 2022 for a two-year period to finish their mandate until the end of 2024.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Production is under way on a second season of lesbian drama “Fragrance of the First Flower,” an Asian drama series from Taiwan’s GagaOOLala. The first season, comprising six episodes that debuted in 2021, follows the life of Yi-Ming (portrayed by Lin ZaiZai), a married woman with a son, who finds herself reunited with Ting-Ting (played by Cheng Lyan), a girl from her past. Their encounter sparks a connection that opens the door to the possibility of escaping Yi-Ming’s monotonous married life. In season two, expanded to 12 episodes, Yi-Ming embarks on a new chapter as a newly divorced single mother and a career woman. This fresh start brings challenges as she navigates the hardships of single parenthood and societal pressures. Even though Taiwan has legalized same-sex marriage in 2019, this does not mean that LGBTQ+ relationships have been fully accepted in mainstream society. Yi-Ming grapples with whether she can truly follow her heart and pursue a life with Ting-Ting. The original cast will return and new characters will be introduced.

A road was closed off in Wigan this morning as firefighters tackled a blaze at a block of flats.

The European Film Academy, the board that oversees the European Film Awards, has voted to restructure its membership for the 2024 awards cycle.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer HBO and Max chief Casey Bloys thinks AI has no place in the creative process at his brands. “Two things to keep in mind when I say this: One is, remember I grew up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which is Steel Town,” Bloys, the chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content, told Variety co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton during a keynote conversation Wednesday at the Variety TV FYC Fest. “So I am very, very aware of what happens when a company does not think about the future or is not aware of the future. But also, I’ve been at HBO for 19 years and I have never tested a pilot to decide whether to pick it up or not. We just don’t use all of the things other places do, it’s just not something we do. So my take on AI, the idea that AI would be involved in any sort of development or the creative process in the kinds of shows that I do, or we do, at HBO, that’s not something I want to be a part of.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Filming permit requests for TV and film projects in New York City were down 13% in April and 31.5% in May as the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike raged on, Variety has confirmed. According to information obtained by Variety, 760 requested shooting permits were issued to 177 projects by the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment in 2022, and 801 permits were granted to 227 projects in May last year. Comparatively, only 662 shooting permits were issued to 187 projects this April and 549 permits to 181 projects in May. The writers strike began May 2, following the WGA’s inability to ink a new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) before the previous agreement expired May 1. Between April and May, the filming permits requested for shoots in NYC fell 17%, while in 2022 they had increased just over 5% between the two months.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer In Fox’s “Crime Scene Kitchen,” it’s not (entirely) about who wins or loses the most-delicious-baked-good portion, it’s about how you play the baking-detective game. For the second season, which premieres Monday at 9 p.m., host Joel McHale and judge Yolanda Gampp said the competition becomes even harder, as it includes both self-taught and classically trained bakers who come at deciphering the mystery baked goods in very different ways. This season also throws savory recipes into the mix in an attempt to trip up contestants who saw only sweet treats featured in Season 1. “The new bakers all saw the show, and I will say a lot of them swore they could do it,” McHale, who also hosted the first season of “Crime Scene Kitchen” back in 2021, told Variety. “It’s just like anything you see while you’re watching it at home, you’re like, ‘I can do that, I can figure that out.’ And then because we opened up the competition a little bit, so now it can be sweet and savory, we put in another variable that did stump a lot of them. Because some of them were classically trained, they knew their stuff very well. But some of the non-classically trained ones thought out of the box a little bit. I would say the advantages are almost equal, in a weird way.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Vice TV is once again expanding its “Dark Side” franchise with a new spinoff that should hit close to home for millennial audiences in particular: “Dark Side of the 2000s.” Premiering July 18 at 10 p.m., the 10-episode season will cover aughts subjects including the radio wars between Howard Stern and Opie & Anthony, “TRL,” the rise of TMZ, Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Sheen’s “Two and a Half Men” conflict, “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” “The Bachelor,” Siegfried & Roy and men’s lifestyle magazines, or “lad mags.” Per its official logline, “From outrageous shock jocks to record breaking reality TV, and the rise of celebrity gossip to the downward spiral of a child star, ‘Dark Side of the 2000s’ delves into the decade’s untold histories, revealing dark secrets and personal insights from the people who witnessed it all first hand.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Gordon Ramsay’s team has been inundated with emails from C-suite execs at food businesses across the U.S. over the past week, following the premiere of his latest Fox competition series, “Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars.” With the unscripted series having already shot its first season in its entirety, these people are already itching to get on a potential second season of “Food Stars,” which, in a twist for Ramsay isn’t a show about how well you cook, plate or serve — it’s ultimately about how you play the business game. And the winner gets $250,000 investment from the celebrity chef himself. “As you know, 68% percent of businesses fail in the first 18 months. And so I have to judge this on the business acumen, but more importantly, the decisions and the quickness of how decisive they need to be in the cutthroat business world,” Ramsay told Variety ahead of Episode 2 of “Food Stars” airing Wednesday at 9 p.m. on Fox “So I need to get behind the character to understand the business. And then as always, stress test those businesses and look for weaknesses. I’ve made mistakes in business, but I’ve never made that same mistake twice. Everything I’ve learned and the restaurants I’ve opened, and the huge success and the issues I’ve had to deal with, across the whole sector, has gone into this shows. It’s been fascinating, because the feedback has been extraordinary. Just on LinkedIn alone, the amount of CMOs and CEOs and COOs in the first 24 hours that my team was inundated with, thousands of requests. It’s been pretty incredible.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Former President Barack Obama opened Netflix’s livestream event for his new docuseries, “Working: What We Do All Day,” on Thursday with a more aggressive statement of support for the Writers Guild of America (WGA) than what he initially said in solidarity with the ongoing writers strike. Before the panel, which aired on LinkedIn at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT, got underway, moderator Ira Glass revealed Obama had prepared remarks he wanted to deliver about the WGA’s work stoppage, which is currently in its fourth week. “Part of what this show ‘Working’ is about is how certain things are constant about the work experience. People trying to find work that’s satisfying, people trying to pay the bills,” Obama said. “Unfortunately one of the things that’s also been constant is the struggle for people to make sure their employers are treating them fairly and they’re getting a fair share of the pie. I think what we’ve seen throughout American history is that unions and worker organizations have had to make demands on their employers, those that are controlling whatever industry they’re in, to make sure they’re treated fairly and entertainment is no exception. My hope would be that in a time of big technological change, where you’ve got big mega corporations that are doing really well, that they keep in mind the creative people who are actually making the product that consumers appreciate and that gets exported all around the world.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Colin Farrell, Mariska Hargitay, Danny Strong, Paula Pell, Rachel Dratch, Michael Kelly and Craig Zobel were among the stars who came out to the writers strike picket line outside Paramount Global’s New York City office in Times Square Thursday. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D.-N.Y., and local politicians spoke at the event in support of the Writers Guild of America’s (WGA) cause against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) that has led to a four-week-and-counting work stoppage due to the organizations’ inability to ink a new contract May 1. “This is about what’s right. We’ve seen income inequality grow exponentially over the last decade; and in your business, it has never been more present,” Gillibrand said to the crowd, filled with not only WGA members, but also those from SAG-AFTRA, IATSE and Teamsters, among other unions. “We see writers working hard every day to produce content and we have an unfair playing field. Not only does AI want to displace our writers, they simply can’t. AI generates content based on what’s been written before the work you did last year, and the year before. It’s not original. It’s not imaginative. It doesn’t come from the human heart. It’s not about a human experience. It’s not about what people actually want to learn about or know about or see or experience. That is what writers bring to the equation every single time. So this strike is so important for the future of this country. It’s about the value of workers; workers and what they create is fundamentally valuable.”

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor That was the week that was, and last week was an upfronts week like no other. Variety’s team of New York-based television and digital reporters offer a debrief on the 2023 programming presentations in New York on the latest episode of Variety weekly podcast “Strictly Business.” The drama roiling the industry was evident in all the Writers Guild of America picket signs that swarmed around the major events held from May 15 to May 17. That added to the general madness of the week that is a television and advertising industry tradition but is starting to feel anachronistic in the streaming era. But the upfronts are still a hard habit to break. Netflix even crashed the party this year, albeit virtually.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Fox is serving up a new season of Joel McHale’s mystery baking competition “Crime Scene Kitchen” next week and bringing several celebrity new guest judges along for the ride. Variety can exclusively reveal that the lineup of Season 2’s famous faces includes “Real Housewives of Atlanta” alum NeNe Leakes, country music star Martina McBride, “Next Level Chef” (a Gordon Ramsay-led Fox food competition) and “Top Chef” star Richard Blais and NBA champ and “Special Forces” (yet another Fox competition) contestant Dwight Howard. Those guest judges will pop in during different episodes this season to join host McHale and full-time judges Curtis Stone and Yolanda Gampp in their evaluations.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Showtime research and scheduling chief Kim Lemon is exiting his post after 34 years with the company. Upon his exit, MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks’ Laurel Weir will be adding oversight of the Showtime brand (soon to be renamed Paramount+ With Showtime) to her purview. Most recently executive vice president of data strategy, research, scheduling and programming, Lemon began his career at Showtime more than three decades ago as a manager of marketing research. “Throughout his tenure, Kim has played an integral role in Showtime’s evolution from a linear network to a bonafide streaming service, establishing a first-in-class data science group,” wrote Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks president Chris McCarthy and Paramount’s executive vice president and chief research officer Colleen Fahey Rush in a memo to staff Tuesday, which was obtained by Variety. “He is a pioneer in brand strategy, always prioritizing our content and being mindful of how it would inform our growth while showing great reverence for the creative process and our audience’s feedback.”