TV3 is set to drop its weekly current affairs programme 20/20 from the schedule for the foreseeable future. A spokesperson for the channel says the programme will return sometime in the new year. Over the summer, series producer Garret Harte, reporter Helen Carroll and researcher David Joyce all resigned from their positions. For the past month, TV3 has been screening repeats of the programme from earlier in the year, as was usual during the month of August. 20/20 is one of the few in-house productions made by TV3.
Hosted in studio by the station's news anchors Grβinne Seoige and Alan Cantwell, the show is linked to the ABC-produced American programme of the same name. It is made up of three news magazine inserts: one Irish and two from the ABC catalogue.
20/20 has enjoyed average viewing figures of between 100,000 and 120,000 for each programme. As well as its in-house reporter, 20/20 regularly used journalists from outside the station for its stories, including Don Mullan, Emily O'Reilly, Frank Connolly and Fergal Bowers. It's believed a number of new Irish inserts made by independent producers are now ready for screening but will be shelved indefinitely. These inserts were produced for a new season of the show, which was expected to be aired this autumn. But the last programme of this year was screened last Sunday.
TV3 was unable to confirm what would replace 20/20 for the autumn schedule, but listings for the next two weeks indicate the slot will be filled by US drama series Early Edition. Next Tuesday, TV3 will announce details of its autumn schedule and celebrate its third birthday.
Tuesday sees the first television screening of a documentary which pays homage to Dublin's street traders and laments their disappearance from the streets of the capital. Alive Alive O! A Requiem for Dublin was filmed sporadically over nearly a decade and also draws on archive footage to recreate the world of the Dublin street traders.
SΘ Merry Doyle, himself a sixth-generation Dubliner, made the film and describes the lengthy process as a labour of love. The poet Paula Meehan - whose mother was a street trader - composed the narrative, which is read by Jasmine Russell. "The poem was written as if the spirit of Molly Malone was looking down on her own community, on kids smacked out on heroin and on traders being run off the streets," says Doyle. "It's not a strident social realist type of documentary but rather an attempt at something more lyrical." Archive footage includes the jailing of Tony Gregory over his support for the Moore street traders in the 1980s, and a fresh-faced U2 playing a gig on Sheriff Street in 1982. The documentary was premiΦred at the Cork Film Festival and has since won an award at the Galway Film Fleadh. It will be shown on RT╔ 1 on Tuesday at 10.05 p.m.
A Chicago judge will rule next month on whether the popular drama series The Sopranos is defamatory and offensive to Italian-Americans. The American Italian Defence Association is suing the makers of the programme, AOL Time Warner Inc, under the "individual dignity" clause of the Illinois constitution. Lawyers for the group argued in court this week that the series, about violent Mafia mobsters in New Jersey, depicts a negative stereotype insulting to American's 20 million ethnic Italians. The group says it doesn't want money or the show's cancellation, but a declaration from a jury that the show offends the dignity of Italian-Americans.
A lawyer for the entertainment company, Thomas Yanucci, argued for dismissal of the suit on the basis that the courts should not adjudicate the content of television programmes. Yanucci said condemning the show would have "a chilling effect . . . on artistic expression. What's next? Dukes of Hazzard, Gone With the Wind, Catcher in the Rye?" The court will rule on whether the lawsuit can proceed on September 13th.
The third series of The Sopranos begins on Network 2 on Tuesday, September 25th at 10 p.m.
Appearing to confirm rumours that US sitcom Friends is nearing the end of its life, Jennifer Aniston said this week the cast is gearing up to say goodbye. In an interview with a US website Aniston, who plays Rachel in the series, said: "It's really heart-breaking for me, every time I think about it I'm on the verge of tears, I really am."
The cast and crew are currently in production with the ninth series of the show. Aniston told the TV website www.Zap2it.com: "We have all shared so many crossroads of our lives together, and then we're all going to go our separate ways, it's too hard to think about." The six central cast members earn $1 million each for each episode.
mkearney@irish-times.com