Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson To Deliver Masterclass At MGEITF

The eagerly awaited programme line-up for this year's Media Guardian Edinburgh International TV Festival will be unveiled tomorrow at: www.mgeitf.co.uk.
Highlights include a Top Gear Masterclass with Jeremy Clarkson and executive producer Andy Wilman, who will explore why it is consistently BBC Two's highest rating programme and whether the recent unveiling of Michael Schumacher as The Stig was actually a publicity stunt.
Internet entrepreneurs will be offering their insight and experience building commercial businesses on the web in the session How to Make Money Online. Panellists including Kristian Segerstrale, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Playfish, Patrick Walker, Director of Video Partnerships (EMEA), Google, Peter Bazalgette, Investor and Non Exec Director, My Video Rights will discuss how they have built large audiences through the internet and will explain how the TV industry needs to change to create a successful online business.
Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, the writers, producers and directors of hit sitcom Outnumbered will reflect on 30 years spent at the heart of British comedy, from their early careers writing on shows such as Not The Nine O'Clock News and Who Dares Wins to Drop The Dead Donkey in the session Andy Hamilton & Guy Jenkin: 30 Years of Polluting the Airways.
As commercial broadcasters feel the financial pressure of delivering news the prospect of the BBC being the UK's only TV news provider will be examined in That Was The News That Was. Chaired by ITV newsreader Julie Etchingham, panellists including Chris Birkett, Executive Editor at Sky News and John Hardie, Chief Executive at ITN will discuss the impact that a news monopoly would have on democracy.
Britain's rising complaining culture over issues of taste and decency will be examined by comedians including Frank Skinner and Lucy Porter in a lighthearted session entitled Whose Whine Is It Anyway. Using the Ofcom complaints list as a guide, a panel of comedians will explore some familiar - and less familiar - objections working as an 'alternative' Ofcom committee to uphold or reject the complaints.
Other key speakers already confirmed include The Chairman and Chief Executive of News Corporation, Europe and Asia, James Murdoch; Gerhard Zeiler, CEO of RTL Group; the BBC's RTS award-winning Business Editor Robert Peston; Peter Fincham, Director of Television, ITV; Ofcom's Ed Richards; Ashley Highfield, MD and VP, Consumer and Online, Microsoft UK; ITV stars Ant and Dec; The Wire creator, David Simon and actor Ross Kemp.
(KMcA/BMcC)