A new all-Ireland initiative from the five television broadcasters on the island was launched in Belfast and Dublin on Thursday, set up by the North-South Broadcasters Group. The channels - RT╔, BBC Northern Ireland, TG4, UTV and TV3 - will be showcasing new filmmaking talent this year in a project entitled "Home". Each broadcaster commissioned approximately five films with durations ranging between three and five minutes. The brief of the project was to celebrate a sense of place and home, but the theme was open to each individual's interpretation. The result is an eclectic mix of representations and ideas of what "home" means to different people. One filmmaker, Jane Minty, in Gnome Front for BBC NI, examines the unconventional gardens in which gnomes have made their homes, while for fiftysomething Dubliner Mick, home-from-home is the garden shed where he tends his homing pigeons. Another filmmaker looks at the experiences of Diana, whose home is currently the new women's prison in Mountjoy. The films will be screened later this year.
RT╔'s entertainment department is to record no less than four pilot TV shows over the next week. Top of the list and a serious contender for a slot in the autumn schedule is The Jason Byrne Show, which features the Dublin comedian, his sidekick PJ and live band The Dirtbags. Guests for the pilot will include Wilt, Barry Murphy (from AprΦs Match) and Caroline Morohan, the newly installed presenter of celebrity quiz show The Fame Game. Also piloting this week is 24 Frames Per Second, a comedy quiz on the movies which is to be hosted by Dara O'Briain. The other two formats to be tested in studio include a financial quiz (working title: Break the Bank) presented by Derek Mooney, and a travel quiz (Fasten Your Seatbelt) to be presented by Jim Smythe. The pilots are the result of months of work from the EntsLab, which was set up within the entertainment department last October with the aim of developing new formats for RT╔ television. If successful, the pilots will go on to the full production stage, for broadcast next year.
RTE is confident that winning formats can be sold on to other broadcasters. Last year's summer game show It's Not the Answer was the first RTE commissioned show to be sold to a UK network - ITN. You can keep up to date with developments in the entertainment department be logging on to RTE's comedy website www.rte.ie/rawtalent.
TG4's summer festival series Feilte 2001 kicks of next Friday with visits to counties Derry, Carlow and Galway for the Walled City Festival, Eigse Carlow and Feile Curach na hAirde Moire at Carna. Feilte's brief has been widened this year to include smaller festivals and events form the Gaeltacht regions. The new mix is designed to reflect the wishes of TG4 viewers, after an MRBI survey last year revealed their demand for more local coverage. Each programme in this year's 10-week run will include a major festival from a Gaeltacht area. FΘilte 2001 will air on TG4 on Fridays at 10 p.m. from July 6th.
An extra episode of soap opera EastEnders is expected to begin weekly on Fridays from August 10th. EastEnders now airs on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings on BBC 1 and RT╔ 1. The BBC will use the trial of Dan Sullivan (Craig Fairbrass) to launch the long-awaited fourth episode. Sullivan is on trial for the shooting of Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden). The BBC is plannign a massive promotional campaign to boost thenew Friday evening slot.
KELSEY Grammer, who plays psychoanalyst Frasier Crane in the US sitcom Frasier, has become the highest paid TV actor in history. According to a report in Variety, Grammer will now command a fee of more than £1.45 million per episode. The actor has agreed to stay with the NBC show for at least two more seasons. The show is entering its ninth season this autumn. Frasier won the EMMY for the best comedy five years in a row, from 1994 to 1998.
mkearney@irish-times.com