The titan of University Challenge reckons it’s time the BBC stopped treating audiences like idiots

DJ Nick Grimshaw and chart stars Rizzle Kicks have been lined up to host a pair of new music shows for Channel 4.

Manchester’s recent University Challenge successes can be credited to one man

At first Barry Simmons seemed like just another plucky quiz contestant: a retired IT consultant whose bookish fastidiousness and towering intellect had guided him to the final of Radio 4’s Brain of Britain.

A Question of Sport is 1,000 not out and celebrating the landmark episode with some very familiar guests.

The pipe-puffing, braces-wearing Denis Forman was one of the godfathers of commercial television in Britain. He firmly believed in making high-quality programmes that were also popular. Under his stewardship, Granada Television was particularly noted for the investigative journalism and dramas that it produced for the ITV network.

Zippy, the yellowish-brown glove puppet who was loud and sought to be the centre of attention in Rainbow, gained a cult status that went beyond the pre-school children's programme's 25-year history.

For even the greatest comedies, getting a new series renewed (ie funded for a new series) can be hard work. When Seinfeld struggled in its first few seasons, it was almost cancelled until it moved slots. Even mega hits like Modern Family only tend to be renewed one season in advance due to the huge costs of making a 24-episode series.

The foul-mouthed, dysfunctional Mrs Brown is hoping to change all that with her new BBC celebrity quiz show

Tuffers is torture, and yet still the punters come. They must be offering them free porn, or sandwiches

Who knew that Benjamin Spock, the first and perhaps greatest of the child-rearing gurus, won a gold medal for rowing at the Paris Olympics of 1924?

Panel show pair David Mitchell and Victoria Coren are engaged to be married.

More so than Miranda Hart, Stephen Fry and David Mitchell, Alexander Armstrong seems to be the acceptable face of posh comedy. With his comically large ears (a gift from his father), crinkly smile, affable demeanour and (crucially, perhaps) lack of smarty pants, he's the cuddly side of the upper classes in an age when, rather oppressively, toffs seem to be taking over again. Even Armstrong's overgrown Hooray Henry, 'Harry', in those adverts for Pimm's – alcopops for the privileged – is cherishable. Not that he drinks the stuff in public, he says, for fear of wags shouting, "It's Pimm's o'clock" – one of the great advertising campaigns, by the way, that helps explain some of Armstrong's wider appeal. The more you parody the posh, as the creatives at the advertising agency Mother realised, the more accessible they become to other groups.

Welcome to Hancock's half-minute (and other utter failures)