Big Brother 11 - Before the Off

Unusually, it looks from here that 'Big Brother' is going to be good cop this year. Probably very far from the truth, but this summer's floral eye design and the undeniably plush interiors already revealed give that impression. Of course the eye is akin to a wreath for the final series and the interior is more see-through and less private than ever before.

Unusually too, we've been given a freakish longlist of around 80 wannabees from whom the the housemates will be picked tonight (well I presume tonight)and some sort of 'champion of champions' special series will follow immediately on for 2 weeks after BB11 ends. I'm wondering if the potential HMs know that they will remain incarcerated a while longer (with the likes of Nadia and Brian Dowling) even if they win?

"Radio Times" layout revamp this week

Yes, I know it might not be the cover you've got, but as STV isn't showing Joanna Lumley's Nile programme she's been unceremoniously dropped by "Radio Times" too. Don't know why they want to avoid embarrassing STV though.

Anyway, to the revamp, as the cover layout remains largely the same ...

Each day now has two whole preview pages, which go across the board on all platforms rather than sitting alongside their relevant listings. Useful if there's more stuff on one platform than another on a particular day, but it still retains some sub-indexing in the rightmost column.

The change most likely to rile - daytime (here defined as before 5pm) has been relegated literally to the margin, and the rather pointless re-iteration of the main Freeview channels has been dropped entirely. Pretty unchanged after that as far as I can see though the BBC One and Two share one page with the commercial channels sharing the opposite page.

Glad that the regional variations gets a bit more prominence for those that don't know what BBC Scotland and STV are editing from view.

The non-terrestrials now get six pages and these are the only two I'll be using as a Freeviewer.

After that are two pages of "satellite and cable", then "films and sport" with just their dedicated channels.

Completely new is this rundown of the Top 10 catch-up TV. Not sure about this yet, but I'm not able to make the most of iPlayer etc on my wi-fi allowance. Others may find it invaluable, if subjective.

The New TARDIS & the Radio Times