Following a 2008 acid attack that left Katie’s face badly scarred, the former model and budding TV presenter chose to share her story with Cutting Edge by making a remarkable film, documenting her journey as she attempted to get her life back on track.

This week, following an overwhelming response to the programme by Channel 4 viewers, Katie came down to The TV Show studios to answer questions from the audience and tell us about her experience making the film.

Update! A response from Katie:

I would like to say thank you to everybody who has left feedback in regards to my appearance on The TV Show.

It was the first time I have taken part in a live audience show, very different from one person and a camera, like the documentary and other interviews I have done. I was worried I would find it hard, all these unfamiliar faces looking at mine ready to question me, but that wasn’t the case – I thoroughly enjoyed it and you all made me feel at ease.

I am very touched that people have taken the time to comment on my story and interviews and if it has helped or inspired people in any way then I am absolutely thrilled!

Lots of love

Katie
xxx

Visit the Katie: My Beautiful Face website for more on Katie’s experiences, including an exclusive online interview.

The role of the scheduling team is to ensure that promotional messages are communicated effectively to the right audience, and that all trails are tonally and editorially suitable for the slot in which they are placed.  The team explained that each trail is viewed by a lawyer prior to its transmission who will advise on any necessary restrictions (for example, post-watershed). If a trail is deemed to be unsuitable for children, it will not be placed in or around programmes that are aimed at children or have a high level of child viewing.

Often there will be two versions of a trail – a 40 second version and a 20 second version. In the case of the trail for Age 8 and Wanting a Sex Change (which attracted half a dozen complaints), the longer, more explicit trail was only shown after 8pm. The shorter trail was kept away from The Simpsons and early morning children’s programming, but was shown pre-watershed at other times of the day. Following a complaint from one viewer about the trail being shown around The Paul O’ Grady Show, the decision was made not to repeat the trail in that slot.

In the case of True Blood, the longer, more explicit trails were restricted to play only after 8pm, while the shorter version was kept away from any programmes aimed at children. The 20 second trail did appear around Hollyoaks and Friends but these programmes are aimed at and appeal to predominantly teenage and young-adult viewers rather than child audiences.

While the True Blood trail could be described as sexually suggestive in style as well as hinting at themes of violence, it was edited in such a way as to ensure that nothing unduly explicit or graphically violent was shown, and avoided any overt representations of sexual behaviour.

The on-air trails team reassured me they are very aware that viewers do not choose to watch trails in the same way as scheduled programmes and, as such, they try to ensure that trails are both appropriate and enjoyable. They do monitor viewer reaction carefully and – as shown in the case of Age 8 and wanting a Sex Change – will respond when it appears that the scheduling was not quite right.

See also Paula’s blog: Trails provoke an unusual reaction

Hosted by Krishnan Guru-Murthy, the studio debate will be looking at the issues raised by the individual programmes in the season, and considering the importance of the season as a whole. The show will be recorded in west London on the afternoon of Thursday 5 November.

Read more about the season and see what others have had to say about it here.

If you’re interested in taking part in the programme, please email the production company at thetvshow@princesstv.com, remembering to include your contact details and a summary of your thoughts on the race and science season.

Though many expressed praise for the programme, a significant number of viewers were critical of its narration – specifically, the way in which the narrator often referred to the children by their birth gender, rather than their preferred gender.

I spoke to commissioning editor Simon Dickson about this feedback – he was keen to explain the decision behind the narrator’s use of pronouns and offers the following response to viewers:

“Thank you to everyone that has contacted Channel 4 to share their views on Bodyshock: Age 8 and Wanting a Sex Change. The film has aroused a great deal of comment, almost all of it favorable, but I am sincerely sorry to hear that some members of the transgender community were upset by our use of biologically-accurate pronouns in the narration of the programme.

“It’s important to remember that the majority of our audience will have had little or no understanding of transgender issues. The decision to use the pronouns we did was based on our responsibility to make the programme comprehensible to a mainstream audience.

“As many viewers have pointed out, the parents featured in our programme always referred to their child by their “preferred” gender. We were happy that this made it absolutely clear that each family had accepted and were extremely supportive of their child’s decision.

“I hope you’ll agree that Age 8 and Wanting a Sex Change was a story worth telling, and a story worth telling to as many people as possible, even at the risk of causing some dissatisfaction amongst those who understand the subject well already.”

As ever, if you’d like to share your thoughts on this subject, please leave your comments below.

Anchored around five thought-provoking science documentaries to be broadcast from Oct 26, the season encourages viewers to delve deep into the subject of race with online features including a Define Race tool (which asks viewers to consider the true meaning of the word ‘race’) and a selection of exclusive video interviews that reveal why our programme presenters and C4 representatives believe the subject of race is such an important one to explore.

Full details of the season can be found on the official Race: Science’s Last Taboo website – alternatively, here’s a brief summary of the five featured documentaries:

• Rageh Omaar kick starts the season on 26 October with Race and Intelligence: Science’s Last Taboo – a documentary that sets out to find the truth, featuring the views of scientists who believe that races can be differentiated, as well as those who vehemently oppose the view.
• The Event: How Racist Are You? (29 Oct) sees controversial former schoolteacher Jane Elliott recreate the shocking exercise she used 40 years ago to demonstrate how susceptible we can all be to bigotry, and what it feels like to be on the other side of arbitrary discrimination.
• On 1 November, The Human Zoo: Science’s Dirty Secret explores the 19th and 20th century phenomenon of human zoos where thousands of ‘exotic’ and indigenous people from all over the world were put on display – intended not merely as entertaining freak shows but also scientific demonstrations of racial difference.
• In Is It Better To Be Mixed Race? (Nov 2), geneticist Aarathi Prasad sets out to challenge this idea of racial purity and examines provocative claims that there are in fact biological advantages to being mixed race.
• Finally, Bleach, Nip, Tuck: The White Beauty Myth (Oct 27 and 3 Nov at 10pm) examines the emerging trend for deracialisation surgery through the stories of six people who want to westernise their bodies and faces. It is right for a person to want to erase their inherited ethnic features to fit in to a predominantly white society?

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I suspect that viewers will have plenty to say about each of these programmes once they have been broadcast. If you have any comments you’d like to share, please leave them below. If your comment refers to articles or essays published by others, please include a link to that article where possible

Race: Science’s Last Taboo will be the focus of discussion on The TV Show’s studio debate on 7 November. More information can be found here. If you’d like to share your views as part of the studio audience, please contact thetvshow@princesstv.com

Over the course of the last couple of months, Ed’s epic journey has generated a great deal of interest from C4 viewers. From the moment he arrived in the Yukon in early July, it’s been possible to follow Ed’s progress via a dedicated Twitter feed and through exclusive videos posted on the C4 website. Since the show has been on-air, hundreds of viewers have left messages of support for Ed on the website and our Alone in the Wild Facebook page, and many others have sent comments via Viewer Enquiries.

In response to this interest, The TV Show will be hosting a Q&A with Ed during the next programme. Do you want to know more about how the series was made? Do you think Ed should have done things differently? Do you think he tried hard enough to find food? What did Ed find most difficult: hunger or loneliness? And how does 50 days of complete solitude really feel?

Please leave your comments below if you have a question you’d like ask Ed. Alternatively, if you’d like to join the studio audience and put your question to Ed in person, please contact thetvshow@princesstv.com – the programme will be recorded in London two days ahead of broadcast on Thursday 1 October.

I spoke to Channel 4’s airtime sales team, who reassured me that the commercial content of these breaks was looked at in great detail and that a number of commercials had been removed as they were felt to be inappropriate. Commercials removed included those for airlines, telephone companies and also a movie which featured a plane crash and a person falling. Sadly the commercial for CSL Sofas was not available to view in advance and, with the benefit of hindsight, the team say they would probably have recommended it be shown at another time. Where possible, advertisement breaks for this programme were also sequenced so that the more upbeat commercials were broadcast in the middle of the break, in an effort to avoid a jar in tone when coming out and back into the documentary itself.

The number of commercial breaks and commercial minutes broadcasters are permitted to take in any programme is regulated by Ofcom. Within this programme’s 130 minute slot there were seven commercial breaks (the maximum permitted) that lasted 22 minutes and 30 seconds in total (less that the maximum 24mins 30s allowed in a slot of this length). Earlier this year, following an Ofcom review of these regulations, the number of breaks that can be carried during programmes lasting over one hour was increased. Under the old regulations, the 9/11 documentary would have been allowed to carry fewer adverts lasting less time (a maximum of 5 commercial breaks at 17m 30s) which may explain the unusual number of complaints that we received this week.

Since 2001, Channel 4 has regularly broadcast programmes about 9/11 at this time of year – the most recent being 9/11: Phone Calls from the Towers. On every single occasion commercial breaks have been inserted with very few complaints.

The sales team pointed out that Channel 4 has to balance its commercial ambitions with its creative output to ensure that viewers feel as little intrusion as is possible with a commercial channel. They acknowledged though that, on this occasion, for some people that balance was not quite achieved.

Traditionally, the festival kicks off with a keynote speech, delivered by an industry big wig, that’s intended to provoke or even outrage the gathered faithful – this year’s speech by James Murdoch (a very big wig with News International) did not disappoint, with a ringing endorsement of rampant commercialism as the best way to fund and protect good television.

During my time in Edinburgh, I attended a number of interesting sessions including one by the BBC’s Robert Peston about the reporting of the credit crunch, another about whether the way broadcasters interpret and apply the Ofcom Broadcasting Code is stifling creativity (your views on this welcome!), and an extremely timely session, chaired by Davina McCall, on the past, present and future of reality television. You can watch selected clips here.

One of the highlights of my trip, this session looked at the impact that reality TV can have on the lives of its participants. Those on the panel included Anna Nolan from the first ever Big Brother, Raef Bjayou from The Apprentice, Jungle winner Christopher Biggins, Steve Brookstein from The X factor, Heat magazine’s TV editor Boyd Hilton magazine, and celebrity agent Jonathan Shalit.

The consensus from the panel was that reality television has matured as a genre and that, as such, the audience, participants and media all now have clear expectations about what is likely to occur during and after a series has aired. This ‘new reality’ lies in stark contrast to the experience of BB1 housemate Anna Nolan, who told the audience she’d had no idea while in the house that people would even bother to watch the show, much less did she expect to forge a career in TV as a result of her appearance on the show.

Jonathan Shalit (who represents clients including Biggins, Myleene Klass, Jamelia, Konnie Huq and N-Dubz) talked about the necessity for celebrities to select carefully before agreeing to take part in reality shows. His rule of thumb is that clients should only take part in a show if the event itself – be it dancing, ice skating, or living in the jungle – is something that they will enjoy; genuine enjoyment will always translate well on screen, and the reverse is also true if someone takes part solely to boost a flagging career.

The conclusion of the discussion was that things have moved on greatly, from the ‘leap into the unknown’ that was the first Big Brother to the familiar genre that is now firmly established as a part of British television. And with the recent announcement that Channel 4 will bid farewell to Big Brother in 2010, the discussion further emphasised the way in which the series has helped shape the TV landscape over the last 10 years.

With the big finale of Big Brother set for next summer and many other changes and developments likely to take place across the ever-evolving television industry in the next 12 months, I’m looking forward to yet more thought-provoking and lively debates in Edinburgh 2011. If you get a chance to watch some of the debates from the festival, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the issues that were discussed.

I couldn’t be more pleased with the first series of Alan Carr: Chatty Man. I wanted viewers to end their weekend with a bit of fun and entertainment before going back to work or school and I think we’ve succeeded in doing that. We’ve had really great guests, fantastic band performances and an awful lot of fun making it. We were keen to create a chat show that reflected Alan’s personality and warmth and would make guests feel welcome so they could have a laugh and muck about.

Alan has quickly grown into a consummate, engaging and extremely funny chat show host over the series successfully making his guests feel at ease whilst able to conduct some revealing interviews from the likes of Jonathan Ross, Samuel L Jackson, David Walliams, Gok Wan and Black Eyed Peas. We’re not sure whether it was the globe of old-school drinks or the 70s décor, but we’ve already had our guests take part in some classic moments: Peter Andre dancing with Stavros Flatley; Dawn French snogging Alan; Mickey Rourke wrestling our host while wearing big heart shaped sunglasses; Martina Navratilova playing Swingball to name a few.

The response from viewers has been overwhelmingly positive with more than 30,000 viewers interacting directly with the show (@chattyman) on Twitter. Even the most complained about skit garnered a similar amount of positive comments and we always appreciate hearing viewers’ thoughts whether they’re good and bad. The tone of the show is always good-natured and affectionate and will continue to be so when series 2 returns in November with some very exciting guests…

Read the full press release over at the official Big Brother site.

It seems like a really big moment for me. As viewers’ editor, Big Brother has been a huge part of my job – I’ve shared the highs and lows of the Big Brother audience and been alongside the producers and commissioners during each series letting them know just what the viewers are feeling about their show.

I have mixed emotions about the decision, and a lot of that is a feeling that I may be losing contact with a great bunch of people who love the show and have never been shy about telling me how they feel – whether that has been critical or complimentary.

So on that note, here’s a chance to tell me how you feel about the end of Big Brother on Channel 4. The natural end of an era? Time for something new? An opportunity for different types of programming? The floor is yours…