BBC pop show goes global

BBC pop show goes global

BBC music show Top Of The Pops is to be broadcast around the world on radio

The show will be broadcast on on the BBC World Service, to an audience of 42 million people.

BBC Radio 1 presenter Emma B will host the show which will count down the UK's biggest selling singles.

The TOTP television show, which celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2004, is already seen in 100 countries

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India to remake BBC sitcom

BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances, about a suburban snob and her pretty obsessions, is to be remade for the India TV market.

The main character Hyacinth Bucket will swap Leamington Spa for Bombay in the Hindi version renamed Kauva Chala Hans Ki Chaal, which translates as "the crow who tries to walk like a peacock".

Bucket - a role made famous by actress Patricia Routledge - will be renamed Bulbul Sand in the show, which could reach an audience of 40 million.

Keeping Up Appearances follows BBC programmes such as Yes Minister and The Weakest Link which have been revamped for the Indian market.

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Tatu hold on to number one

Teenage Russian pop duo Tatu are at the top of the UK singles chart for the fourth week running.

The Russian girls held on to the top spot with All The Things She Said, despite a challenge from Justin Timberlake - who made the front pages after his raunchy act with Kylie Minogue at the Brit Awards.

Timberlake moved up one place to number two with Cry Me A River.

Tatu's four-week reign at the top of the singles chart is the longest since reality TV band Girls Aloud stayed at number one for four weeks with Sound of the Underground.

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Caine wins showbusiness award

Actor Michael Caine has topped the list of winners at the Variety Club Showbusiness Awards on Friday.

Caine, already nominated for an Oscar for his role in The Quiet American, won the Outstanding Performance in a Film award, at The Dorchester hotel in London.

Among the other award winners were Tamzin Outhwaite, who was voted Television Personality of 2002, and John Peel who won the Radio Personality gong.

The event, which will be televised on BBC One on 23 February, was hosted by actress and comedian Meera Syal.

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Hasselhoff injured in motorbike smash

Baywatch star David Hasselhoff and his wife have suffered broken bones after he lost control of their motorbike in Los Angeles on Thursday.

Strong winds were blamed for the crash, which threw the actor against a pole and his wife, actress Pamela Bach, into the road.

The couple were taken to UCLA Medical Centre where Hasselhoff, 50, was treated for a possible lower back fracture, a broken rib and cuts and bruises.

Bach, 39, was treated for a fractured ankle and broken wrist.

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UK clamps down on pirate broadcasters

There was an increase in convictions and a drop in the number of pirate broadcasters operating in the UK last year, according to Department of Trade and Industry figures.

Some 49 people were prosecuted last year with a 100% conviction rate.

This more than doubled the 20 convictions of 2001 and is the highest figure since 1998.

The Radiocommunications Agency, which polices the airwaves, carried out a total of 1,046 operations against pirates in 2002, more than three raids a day.

The maximum penalty for piracy is two years in prison and an unlimited fine.

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Alfred Molina to play Super-Man nemesis

British-born actor Alfred Molina has signed up to play the role of comic-book hero Super-Man's nemesis in the sequel to last year's blockbuster movie.

Molina, 49, will play the evil Doc Ock in Columbia Pictures' The Amazing Spider-Man, which begins shooting in April.

The character, also known as Doctor Otto Octavius, is an atomic researcher rendered criminally insane in a laboratory accident.

Molina won a Screen Actor's Guild nomination last month for his role as Mexican artist Diego Rivera in Frida, the story of Rivera's celebrated artist wife Frida Kahlo.

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New cable channel aimed at Hispanics

A new cable television channel aimed at US Hispanics will be launched in May.

Chicago-based Expresion channel will vie for viewers in a market led by Spanish-language broadcasters Univision Communications Inc and NBC's Telemundo.

US Hispanics have become a key target for advertisers looking for a way to reach a population of 37 million with an estimated annual spending power of more than $500bn (£310bn).

New York, Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles, all of which have large Hispanic populations, are among the cities that will gain access to Expresion's signal first.

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Toni Morrison to work on slave opera

Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison is collaborating on an opera based on the life of an escaped slave who tried to kill her family to avoid returning to captivity.

The opera, entitled Margaret Garner, is scheduled to premiere at the Detroit Opera House in May 2005, with mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves singing the title role.

Margaret Garner is based on Garner's flight from Kentucky to the free state of Ohio in 1856.

When slave-hunters tracked down Garner, her husband and children, she slit her baby daughter's throat to avert a return to slavery.

The story inspired Morrison's 1987 novel Beloved.