Broken News

Television series

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. 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.

Tomato Flu An outbreak of tomato flu is in the headlines. This alarming new super virus (a parody of avian influenza) can be traced back to a turkey farm in Turkey. The news networks advise on the best way to avoid tomatoids in food such as tomato ketchup. In other news: a man is injured by a frozen block of urine. Missing Island A report that an island has gone missing in the Barents Sea triggers paranoia about rising sea levels in Lincolnshire and the end of the world as we know it. In other news: teenagers' attention spans are now as low as eleven seconds. Half Way There Day Reports on commemorations around the country to mark the day Britain reached the half way point in the last World War. In other news: The MADI music awards are here again, without last year's controversy. Crime The publication of a Home Office report which reveals that the majority of teenagers are now criminals leads to a series of news stories from the country's worst hit areas. A picture of Britain in which the teenage population "now effectively feral, roam Britain's urban landscapes in packs of up to fifteen at a single time." In other news: East Anglia could be gone within a decade. Bolivian Crisis Reaction comes from around the world to rumours that Bolivia might have acquired nuclear weapons. Including a report from the White House: This is a bad day for the good guys, President Bush. In other news: A cross eyed man kills a horse while trying to shoot himself. Hijack Media frenzy is quick to follow after reports emerge of an apparent hijack of an American passenger flight bound for Amsterdam. This live breaking story dominates the running orders of the world's news networks. In other news: An injunction has been served on Josh Cashman.

Some have accused the show of being too close in style, presentation, writing and humour to the groundbreaking news satire The Day Today, first broadcast in 1994. Broken News has been attacked as "The Day Today for idiots. A show with nothing to say, full of sub Chris Morris newspeak and malapropism humour shorn of all originality. The Day Today had a reason to exist – this didn't." However, co creator John Morton said in The Guardian "I hope after the first 10 minutes of our show you realise that it's a different animal from The Day Today. The target has changed because we've got this Tower of Babel of news. Plus we're sillier and more harmless."