The BBC contract covers all platforms and promises new innovations including online and on-demand coverage. Bernie says ”The BBC has some innovative ideas to consolidate and expand our UK fan base.”  It comes at a time when the BBC has been losing more and more sports to ppv and subscription based channels.

The BBC does have a lot to offer the F1 fans. For a start the main one I can see is HD. Formula One has been filmed in HD for a couple of years now for other markets. However now that HD has become so mainstream and that BBC already has an up and running HD channel – there is every reason to expect that the BBC will broadcast every grand prix in HD.

To that end the album was produced by successful songwriter/producers Timbland and The Neptunes. This really shows in the songs. There is a very hip hop theme to many of the tracks. Most of the songs feature a few poppy tuning rhymes sung by Madonna before some sort of nonsensical rapping with electronic effects by either her or a collaborative artists.

The albums itself does feature a number of catchy tunes that will be suited well on the dance floor of a commercial night club on a Saturday night. I just don’t see the tunes becoming masterpieces still selling records in 20 years like some of her earlier work.

I think the problem with Madonna is that she has done so many different styles of music over the years and gained fans across the broad spectrum that whatever album she produced it could not satisfy all of her fans. This album will no doubt appeal to another audience and will satisfy many hardcore Madonna fans and I have no doubt will peak very highly on the album charts in the US and UK.

Overall rating 6/10

To be honest I would be happy if the game was similar in content to San Andreas and in HD graphics!! Anything else is a bonus! However there are a few things else on my wish list. The biggest of these is online play. Luckily this has been confirmed by Rockstar and Microsoft, although some of the multiplayer modes have been kept secret for now. I just can’t wait to chase my friends across a massive map, hunt them down and kill them horribly.

Another feature that annoyed me from previous GTA games was loading screens; these two are confirmed. However, beware if you have the PS3 version it is rumoured there will be a 5 minute loading screen when you first run the game? No idea if this is correct or not, only one more week until we find out…

No doubt there will be little niggles that make this game near-perfect instead of perfect. But regular updates are promised to the game and already the game has received a 98% rating (the highest ever) from ‘Xbox World 360′. I can’t find a bad review of it anywhere on the internet. It truly will be a massive game release. I think it will surpass Halo 3 and compete for the biggest game release of all time.

Check back in a few weeks for my personal review of the game, if I can tear myself away from it of course.

If you haven’t got an XBOX 360 to play GTA4 on, check out this amazing offer from Amzon.

• Amazon XBOX 360 & GTA4 Bundle
  

A few months back I got excited at the launch of new TV channel Virgin 1. They had advertised to be “The new home of trek”. They committed to showing my favourite TV series of all time, daily, in a primetime slot. This made me very excited, it had been a very long time since I had seen this show on TV, and on VHS rentals for blockbuster!

I started watching the show every day (well SKY+ it anyway) and despite the poor broadcast quality on the virgin channel (audio and video compression was very high) I really got into the show and couldn’t wait to watch each new episode. However, Virgin 1 did the dirty on us Trek fans. At the end of series 5, the show suddenly stopped. No warning, nothing! They were not showing it anymore! A few weeks later they advertised it was available for Virgin on demand. A service a very small minority of the population have (limited to cable areas and virgin subscribers). This was an awful way to treat us loyal fans.

Luckily, Amazon came to the rescue. The slim line versions of the DVD seasons have been reduced down to less than £16! When the full DVD box sets came out they were more than £80 a pop! Quite a saving to be had…

Anyway.. back to the series itself. Season 6 contains many notable episodes. The season starts with an ongoing story arc with the occupation of DS9 by dominion forces. These episodes offers fresh new stories to be explored as well as perhaps the best space battle in Trek history to finish it off.

The season continues with wonderful episodes that are anything but rehashes of previous episodes. Nearly every episode is unmisable and offers something new to the watcher! Now I like traditional science fiction trek episodes - scary aliens, big space battles, techno babble. However many episodes in this season manage to look at the more emotional and dramatic side of life on deep space nine without becoming dull and boring to me! It provides a wonderful balance which keeps you interested. Stand out episodes for me include ‘Valiant’, ‘Who mourns Morn’ and the season finale - ‘Tears of the Prophet’.

Truly this season is one of the best seasons not just of Star Trek but of Science Fiction in general. Anyone who has been a casual Star Trek needs to get this season on DVD and watch it properly! (Even better if you were to watch all previous 5 seasons first). Retailing at some places for less than £20 there is no excuse not to order it now!

If you do get it - let me know what you think in this blogs comments!

We’re just weeks away from the launch of a new free-to-air service that promises a new way to get FTA channels - including new and existing HD channels. Receiver boxes should start appearing in retail outlets sometime next week and the service should start broadcasting soon after that on the same Astra 28E satellite that Sky uses (you can use your existing dish!).

This week some interesting news about the service has leaked out. The first pictures of the EPG and box of the Humax Freesat box were leaked on the Digital Spy forum and are believed to be genuine. The website also claims to have some technical specs on the box itself.

In other Freesat news; it is not beleived that five HD will be available at launch and even five itself is in doubt. This could be a major blow to both five and the freesat launch, but will no doubt be sorted within a few weeks.

I’ll keep you updated with any news I hear on Freesat and my review when I get my own Freesat setup.

The change also coincides with a change to the studio and is just weeks after a revamped version of the BBC website launched.

All in all I think the changes are good for the BBC. It creates a unified news brand across media. However I’m still not sure on some of the branding with the grey and red. Maybe it will grow on me?

Links

• BBC News Website Editor comments on changes.