— Did Ant and Dec really snatch the People's Choice Award at the 2005 British Comedy Awards from Catherine Tate? An overlooked statement from the show's producers says the award “may have been given to the wrong person,” which also means it may not. There ought to be a recount to find out for sure; they count elections quicker in Zimbabwe.

— Endemol appointed a new chief executive earlier this week in the form of Ynon Kreiz, the venture capitalist who helped to back Setanta when it seized the rights to show 46 Premier League games. He will have his work cut out, though. Endemol makes no drama or comedy, and its key formats, Big Brother and Deal or No Deal look tired. Still Goldman Sachs, the bank that orchestrated the deal, doubtless knows best, having paid a huge 14 times underlying earnings to buy a business that would be worth six times on the market today (the smaller Shed Productions is worth only about four times). And it needs to keep its investment partners focused. There's Silvio Berlusconi, who may be more interested in running Italy now, while the third investor, John de Mol, seems to be backing others, such as producer RDF Media.

— France wants to raise money for its public broadcaster, France Televisions. Under consideration is a 1per cent tax on fixed and mobile internet operators, and internet providers plus a 1per cent tax on televison sales. That would raise just over €600 million (£485 million) over there, and probably about the same over here, enough to cut the licence fee by a sixth, or to plug any funding gap Channel 4 has. But will British politicians notice? The phone companies will be hoping not.

— Duffy's debut album, Rockferry, landed at No4 in the US Billboard chart, and the singer's record company, Universal, reckons that is the best-ever American debut for one of its UK acts. Nice timing for Lucian Grainge, the Briton who runs Universal International, who is increasingly tipped to take the top job in New York when the current worldwide boss, Doug Morris, now well into his 60s, choses to step down from the Vivendi-owned company.

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