Broken News
Broken News is a comedy programme shown on BBC Two in late 2005. The show poked fun at the world of 24-hour rolling news channels. The title of the show is a play on the phrase "breaking news". It had six thirty-minute episodes. Having previously worked on programmes such as People Like Us and The Sunday Format, the show's production team worked closely with writer and director John Morton.
| Broken News | |
|---|---|
| Genre | News satire |
| Created by | John Morton, Tony Roche |
| Directed by | John Morton |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| No. of series | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 6 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Jon Plowman |
| Producer | Paul Schlesinger |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC Two |
| Release | 31 October – 6 December 2005 |
The show jump cut between its various spoof TV channels, which covered both the central story and other stories that would be of interest to their audience. A large part of the comedy came from observations about the nature of news presentation rather than the stories themselves.
The programme centred on Britain's addiction to 24-hour news channels. Each week, Broken News looked at a fictitious news story such as "Tomato Flu" or "The End of the Rain". Its massive cast of 145 actors played newsreaders and reporters on different networks.
It was released on DVD Region 2 on 12 June 2006.