'Spoof Controller Blog', The Guardian

Saturday, June 09, 2007

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Spoof Blog parody of young controller is the talk of television. James Silver reports

The anonymous author of a spoof blog, supposedly written by wunderkind BBC3 controller Danny Cohen, has become the Scarlet Pimpernel of the television industry.

With its close-to-the-bone bitchiness, toe-curling depiction of programme commissioning meetings and walk-on parts for several well-known industry figures, ‘The Secret Blog of a TV Controller, aged 33 and ¾’ has transfixed many in the industry since its launch less than two months ago.

However, despite feverish finger-pointing, the author’s identity remains a closely-guarded secret. “Everybody has become slightly obsessed with finding out who writes it,” says one independent producer, who declined to be named. “The way it’s written is extremely unflattering and if I were Danny Cohen, I would be mortified.”

Initial postings appeared soon after 33-year-old Cohen left his job as head of youth channel E4 to become controller of BBC3 in April, under a headline declaring that it was “the first blog about the TV industry penned by a true TV insider – Me…the youngest channel controller in the history of British television”.

In early entries the author describes how he wants “every female presenter [he’s] ever fantasized about, starting with Anneka Rice” to appear on his channel and frets that his goatee beard, which he thinks lends him “the air of a maverick risk-taker”, will not be ready by the time he starts his new job.

Subsequent highlights include an encounter with the BBC’s “scary diversity lady”, an independent producer pitching him an idea for a new dating show called “Sit on my Face(book)” and how he spent “20 minutes perving over Paris Hilton”.

While the blog is plainly a spoof – albeit one which is believed to contain (mostly) accurate insider information –it seems its arrival sent a ripple of panic through the industry. “When it kicked off, I had lots of emails flying around from various clients saying ‘This is a bit too close to home, can you find out who’s behind it?’” says PR boss James Herring, one of the few ‘real people’ to appear in the blog and someone who gets a suspiciously good press. “I still don’t know who the author is, but whoever it is clearly knows their way around the industry.”

Of the various leading contenders for the blog’s authorship – including the anonymous creator of the ‘Holy Moly’ gossip site, independent TV producer, Steven D. Wright and, indeed, Herring himself – one name to crop up frequently, in enquiries made by the Guardian, is the writer and broadcaster, Charlie Brooker. But Brooker greets the suggestion with bemused laughter. “People keep asking if I write it and I tell them that I just don’t know enough about the politics of TV,” he says. “Whoever is doing it clearly has an axe to grind [with Cohen] as well as a lot of spare time on their hands. I have neither. There’s also something quite nasty about the way it’s written. I find the tone [of the blog] very mean-spirited.”

A leading TV producer, who speaks on condition of anonymity, claims he knows who the author is, but refuses to name names. “I can tell you that it’s two people. One of them works in the vicinity of Danny Cohen’s office at the BBC and that person feeds information to someone who writes it, who’s actually at Channel 4. It’s safe to say that one of them is a former colleague of Danny’s. If you read it carefully it has to be written by insiders, as it’s too closely observed to be written by anyone who doesn’t work in TV. They clearly know all Danny’s foibles and those of other people in the industry, like [producer] Sebastian Scott.”

Why does he think Cohen, who declined to comment to the Guardian, has been singled out as the subject of a satirical blog? “It’s partly his age, but also Danny’s arrogant and he’s pissed off a few people. If someone wrote a spoof blog about, say, [BBC2 controller] Roly Keating, no one would bother reading it. Danny’s super-bright, brilliant at impressing the people above him and nakedly ambitious. This is an industry which rewards naked ambition. And people resent that.”

The Secret Blog of a TV Controller Aged 33 and 3/4

(The Guardian, June 9th, 2007)

Posted by James Silver - On Saturday, June 09, 2007

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