Category: 5. Entertainment

Queen Elizabeth II once turned down an invitation to open Bristol Airport’s new terminal and the reason, according to her cousin, is straight out of a royal anecdote.

Lord Ivan Mountbatten, the late Queen’s third cousin once removed, recalled the story on the Rosebud podcast. 

He explained that he was travelling to the Scottish Highlands for a shooting weekend with her when airport security stopped him from bringing his shotguns onto the plane.

When he later arrived at Balmoral empty-handed, the Queen was less than impressed. She asked her equerry to make sure the guns were delivered in time for the following day’s shoot, but the situation left her irked with the airport.

“She said to me, They want me to open their new terminal. I don’t think I will now,” Lord Ivan revealed.

True to her word, she declined the invitation, and it was Princess Anne who eventually stepped in to open the terminal in 2015.

Lord Ivar Mountbatten has revealed a very royal reason why Queen Elizabeth II declined to open Bristol Airport’s new terminal and it all began with a dispute over shotguns.

Speaking on the Rosebud podcast, Elizabeth’s cousin recalled sitting beside Her Majesty at Balmoral when he shared how airport security had refused to let him fly with his guns for a planned shooting weekend.

“I’m sitting on the right-hand side of the Queen and I’m kind of irritated by this story,” he explained. 

“So I repeat it to Her Majesty. And I could see that she was getting rather irritated as well.”

According to Mountbatten, the Queen quickly turned to her equerry, believed to be Simon Brailsford, and instructed: “Simon, I would like Lord Ivar’s guns to be up here tomorrow morning. Please see to it.”

Then, with what he described as a twinkle in her eye, she looked back at him over her glasses and quipped, “They want me to open their new terminal. I don’t think I will now.”

And she never did. Instead, when the Bristol Airport terminal was finally inaugurated in 2015, it was Princess Anne who carried out the royal duty.

Mountbatten added with a chuckle: “Every time I go back to Bristol Airport now, it was opened by the Princess Royal and I have a quiet laugh to myself.”

Vanessa Kirby, the Fantastic Four star stepping into the Marvel universe, has revealed what she has been researching to prepare for Avengers: Doomsday.

For the unversed, the Fantastic Four has just stopped Galactus from destroying the planet, but their story in the MCU is not finished.

Next, they will face Robert Downey Jr’s Doctor Doom or maybe some X-Men in Avengers: Doomsday and the group did not come out unharmed after their hard fight with Ralph Ineson’s Galactus in Fantastic Four: First Step.

In a talk with MovieWeb, the 37-year-old actress reflected on how her character changes in Avengers: Doomsday, especially after coming back from the dead in the Fantastic Four ending because her son Franklin used the Power Cosmic.

Kirby, who played the role of Sue Storm in the Fantastic Four: First Step, said, “I love that I get to continue with Sue because it’s so interesting.”

She added, “I’ve been thinking a lot doing Avengers and stuff about how someone that’s been through, in the space of basically a week, someone who has given birth and has died and come back to life… how a death experience like that would change you.”

Notably, the Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One star approached those who had near-death experiences, as it could play a vital role in her character in Avengers: Doomsday.

“I’ve been listening to a lot of people that have had those [kinds] of experiences and what they learn, and therefore how different they are after they come back from that,” Kirby noted.

It is being reported that the Fantastic Four might be part of the Marvel Phase 6 crossover, but not much is known about what role they will have in Avengers: Doomsday.

Fox has unveiled the complete list of stars taking part in Celebrity Name That Tune Season 5.

The competition show premieres on Monday, September 15, at 8 p.m. ET and is available to stream the next day on Hulu.

The hour-long game show tests contestants’ music knowledge as they battle it out in an assortment of challenging musical games for a chance to win over $100,000.

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Jane Krakowski hosts the game show with American Idol alum Randy Jackson serving as band leader. Each episode of Celebrity Name That Tune is comprised of two stand-alone half-hour contests, each pitting two players—either celebrity or civilian pairings—against each other as they test their knowledge of songs, performed by the live band.

Each contest features a rotating variety of games from the original format, before the iconic Bid-a-Note round. The player with the most money at the end of Bid-a-Note wins the game and takes his or her bank into the Golden Medley bonus round, for a chance to win additional cash and potentially the life-changing $100,000 grand prize.

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The celebrity contestants compete for their chosen charities in each episode. Stars of Season 5 include Modern Family alums Jesse Tyler Ferguson (“Pronoun” Nick Leung) and Ariel Winter (SOSA).

Former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Lisa Rinna (St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital) and Comedian Matteo Lane (Doctors Without Borders) will be featured in the same episode.

Other celebrities that will take part in Celebrity Name That Tune Season 5 include Actress Aisha Tyler (Planned Parenthood), Actress Mira Sorvino (UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking in Persons), Lil Jon (Pencils for Promise), Chord Overstreet (A Sense of Home), Omar Epps (The Creative Coalition), Kal Penn (World Central Kitchen), Adrienne Bailon-Houghton (Birthfund),  Chris Harrison (Experience Camps), Emily Osment (Project Angel Food), Nia Vardalos (Hope 4 Kids), Jillian Michaels (ASPCA), Ron Funches (Next For Autism).

Former Real Housewives of New York City alum Sonja Morgan (The Trevor Project) and Project Runway mentor Christian Siriano (GLAAD) will also be part of the new season.

Other stars in the game show include Debi Mazar (World Central Kitchen), Reggie Watts (Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund), Rob Riggle (Riggle Foundation), Finesse Mitchell (Ora Lee Smith Cancer Research Foundation), Torrey Devitto (SafeBae) and Craig Robinson (Saint Leonard’s Ministries).

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Celebrity Name That Tune is produced by Fox Entertainment Studios, Prestige Entertainment and BiggerStage. On behalf of BiggerStage, Sean O’Riordan and Shane Byrne serve as executive producers. Noah Rubenstein and Tom Ruff also serve as executive producers.

Scroll through the photo gallery below to meet all the guest stars from Celebrity Name That Tune Season 5.

IBC announces that the International Honour for Excellence (IHFE), will be presented to world-renowned editor Thelma Schoonmaker. The award recognizes her achievements and lifetime contribution to the art and craft of filmmaking, spanning more than five decades and helping shape modern cinema through her close collaboration with Martin Scorsese.

The award will be presented in person on Sunday 14 September at 18.00 CEST on the main stage of the IBC Conference in the RAI Amsterdam. Earlier in the day at the IBC Conference, Thelma Schoonmaker will also participate in a Fireside Chat about her life in film, hosted by journalist and author Carolyn Giardina, Consulting Editor of American Cinema Editors’ ‘Cinema Editor’ Magazine. The session will be free to attend for all IBC2025 attendees.

Film editor Thelma Schoonmaker has been at the forefront of moving picture innovation for over fifty years, having helped Scorsese edit his first feature in 1967 and gone on to collaborate with him in the editing of his creative vision in every major work since Raging Bull. Her credits include Goodfellas, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Irishman, and most recently, Killers of the Flower Moon. She is the only editor to receive nine Oscar nominations, winning a record three Academy Awards for Raging Bull, The Aviator and The Departed. Schoonmaker has also won BAFTAs for Raging Bull and Goodfellas, and in 2019 received the BAFTA Fellowship – the British Academy’s highest honour.

A passionate advocate for film restoration, she continues to champion the legacy of her late husband, director Michael Powell, and the landmark works of Powell and Pressburger. The influence of the editing in Scorsese’s films extends across generations of filmmakers, documentary makers and editors, inspiring technical mastery, creativity and unwavering passion for the craft of storytelling.

Michael Crimp, IBC’s Chief Executive Officer, comments: “Thelma Schoonmaker’s unique contribution and legacy is felt across the entire media world. Her dedication to storytelling, technical brilliance and lifelong commitment to collaboration exemplify the very best of our industry. People are at the heart of IBC, and we’re proud to honor those who have not only shaped the media we all know and love – but who continue to inspire new generations to come.”

Globo recognized with Special Award for 100 Years of innovation

IBC is also recognizing Globo, Latin America’s largest media company, with a Special Award for its continued leadership, innovation and support for global media advancement. Alongside consistent commitment to industry collaboration, cultural storytelling and audience connection, Globo is leading new initiatives to accelerate Brazil’s next broadcasting evolution with the rollout of TV 3.0.

Globo is, above all, a great storyteller of Brazilian stories, reaching 70 million Brazilians daily and 160 million monthly across all its platforms – open TV, pay TV, streaming, and digital. In 2025, the group celebrates a century of media leadership in Latin America, since the launch of its newspaper O Globo in 1925. As it looks to the future, Globo reaffirms its commitment to innovation, Brazilian talent, and continuous reinvention. The company is at the forefront of the media industry, leading the implementation of TV 3.0 (DTV+) and strategically and ethically integrating AI across its operations, from content creation to personalised audience experiences, all while upholding strong governance and valuing human talent.

Swiss team awarded Best Technical Paper for research on AI for Trusted News

Alexis Allemann, Sebastien Noir and Andrei Popescu-Belis are being awarded the coveted Best Technical Paper at IBC2025 for their work developing an AI Chatbot for Trusted News, underpinned with strict editorial standards and transparency. The paper is entitled EBU NEO – A sophisticated multilingual chatbot for a trusted news ecosystem exploration.

The authors – from the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and la Haute École d’Ingénierie et de Gestion du Canton de Vaud (HEIG-VD) – sought to address the quality, bias and transparency concerns of commercial news chatbots. Their approach was to optimise Retrieval Augmented Generation (a technique used to enhance Large Language Models).  The result is a database of over 3.5 million articles growing by 3000 news stories per day, and an invaluable tool for both professional journalists and the public to explore the news.

Paul Entwistle, Chair of the IBC Technical Papers Committee and Peer Review Panel, says: “The paper was very well written, providing an excellent technical disclosure, innovative improvements, detailed performance comparisons and a case study with important lessons on deploying a public-facing AI. The topic itself, trusted news in the age of AI, is critically important, with the EBU uniquely positioned to develop such a system. The paper highlights the scale and complexity of the task, the impressive capabilities that AI can bring, as well as reminding us of its current limitations. This is excellent work – and significant beyond our own industry.”

The paper – alongside 22 other successful Technical Papers – was selected by IBC’s international peer review panel of 20 media technology experts from 337 submissions covering original research on solutions to real-world problems faced by the international broadcast and digital media industry. The Best Technical Paper will be formally presented at the IBC2025 Conference on Saturday 13th September at 13:30 CEST and celebrated at the IBC Innovation Awards presentation on Sunday 14 September, alongside Thelma Schoonmaker, Globo, and all other award winners, at an invitation only event.

A prize celebrating LGBTQ+ literature has cancelled its awards this year, after a row over the longlisting of an author who has described himself as a “Terf” – the acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist.

From a total longlist of 24, 16 authors and two judges withdrew from this year’s prize, and more than 800 writers and publishing industry workers signed a statement protesting against the inclusion of John Boyne, the author best known for The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

Polari said it had decided to “pause the prize this year” while it increases “representation of trans and gender non-conforming judges on the panels for all the awards” and undertakes “a governance and management review”, organisers wrote in a statement on Monday.

“What was supposed to be a celebration of exceptional LGBTQ+ literature has been overshadowed by hurt and anger, which has been painful and distressing for all concerned and we apologise to everyone who has been affected”, it added.

The prize organisers said they had had “many conversations” with authors, judges, stakeholders and funding bodies about the impact of Boyne’s longlisting and “how we can learn from this experience and move forwards”.

“We are a tiny operation that has run on goodwill and small pots of funding and sponsorship for 15 years and will endeavour to find a way forwards in good faith”, the statement concluded.

Polari had previously told the Guardian that it was “committed to going forward” with this year’s prize. In a statement on 7 August, it said that Boyne had been longlisted “on merit” and that it was “inevitable” that “even within our community, we can at times hold radically different positions on substantive issues”.

The statement in protest against Boyne’s longlisting, drafted in response to Polari’s 7 August statement, said that the author had “publicly and unequivocally associated himself with trans exclusionary sentiments”, citing an Irish Independent article in which Boyne expressed support for JK Rowling and described himself as a “fellow Terf”. Its hundreds of signatories included Alice Oseman, the author of Heartstopper, along with the writers Nikesh Shukla, Julia Armfield, Naoise Dolan and Seán Hewitt.

Author Nicola Dinan, who won the Polari first book prize last year for her novel Bellies, resigned from this year’s jury for the debut prize. Guardian journalist Jason Okundaye asked for his book Revolutionary Acts to be removed from this year’s first book prize longlist, while Andrew McMillan withdrew his book Pity from the longlist for the overall Polari book prize for non-debuts, for which Boyne was also longlisted.

Writing in the Guardian last week, Okundaye said that the prize had “always been for the entire LGBTQ+ community”, and so “it is a contradiction to include someone who is trans-exclusionary”.

In a response to the controversy, Boyne said that it seemed “absurd and wrong” that debut writers who were withdrawing were losing an opportunity, and said that if they returned, he would ask judges not to consider his novella, Earth, for the shortlist.

Writing in the Telegraph on Tuesday, he called Polari’s decision to cancel the prize an “interesting example of self-cancellation”, and said that nobody from the prize had contacted him. “Had they done so, perhaps a happier resolution might have been found”.