Media: Things we like

Shine TV, the producer of the BBC show, has launched the first digital extension of the brand with an app featuring 100 tutorials from previous winners of MasterChef and MasterChef: The Professionals. It's a great idea, with the recipes split by food category and broadcast quality. And it also features Gregg Wallace and John Torode, presumably in less combatative mood than they are on the TV show.

i

The first new newspaper since The Independent and Today in the 80s, i takes its cue from both these publications. Fortunately, however, this doesn't include the tiresome moralising from the Indy and the dodgy colour newsprint from the now defunct Today. It's also more intelligent than its free counterpart Metro with genuine news albeit presented in an accessible way. Any innovation in the print industry is welcome and, at 20p, it's pretty good value. We wish it success.

Richard Bacon's Beer & Pizza Club

OK, so the subject matter is not exactly challenging or sophisticated but ITV4 has finally found a new originated format - other than a repeat of old episodes of The Saint or The Professionals - that fits its demographic profile. The premise is that Richard Bacon asks some showbiz chums (usually second-rate comedians such as Rufus Hound) around to his flat - in fact, a studio - where they engage in laddish banter over beer and pizza. With this and the highlights of the Aviva Premiership, ITV4 is beginning to carve out its own distinctive niche.

Brit Cops: War on Crime

The fifth, and possibly the last, series of the brilliantly addictive cop-umentary (following Sky's decision to shut Bravo) debuts tonight. Having previously followed the Met, Dfyed-Powys, Wiltshire and Devon & Cornwall Police, in this series the action moves to Lincolnshire, where "cops fight crime across one of the UK's largest counties". If this doesn't exactly sound promising material, watch it and see - the first episode features the police attempting to break up a bar-fight in Skegness. Is it too much to hope that the series will find a new home on Sky One?

AND ONE THING WE DON'T ...

Channel 5's marketing

With Channel 5 predictably enough pulling out of Thinkbox, the prospect of more puffy pieces promoting its shows in Northern & Shell's Express Newspapers and The Star fill us with dread. And we can only imagine what it's doing to the poor hacks that have to write them. Aside from showing that there is no real marketing strategy for Channel 5 (the £20 million Stan Myserson said that had been allocated to marketing seems largely ephemeral given that it runs in N&S titles), it even manages to insult the intelligence of its readers.

This article was first published on campaignlive.co.uk