EXCLUSIVE: Have I Got News for You producer Jimmy Mulville is unhappy with the BBC‘s decision to censure the show over a joke involving Victoria Beckham.

In a statement shared with Deadline, Mulville — a producer who rarely pulls his punches — said the nearly year-long investigation into the joke after two viewer complaints was a “total waste of the licence fee” and an example of the “BBC’s paranoia about causing offence.”

In a ruling published on Thursday, the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit concluded that host Katherine Ryan‘s gag, in which Beckham was compared to a “c**t,” was editorially unjustified. The unit ordered that the joke be removed from the show. It followed two viewers complaining that it was “gratuitously offensive.”

Mulville, the founder of Hat Trick, said the Executive Complaints Unit missed the meaning of Ryan’s joke. He explained: “Katherine and Victoria exchanged messages on Instagram about the remark, which Katherine put into its intended context.

“In contemporary queer and ballroom culture, the word has been reclaimed. It is used to describe someone who looks extremely confident, impeccably styled, fierce, or authentically and powerfully feminine. Katherine Ryan is a woman who would not disparage another woman in that way.”

Mulville continued: “The fact the two members of a 6 million audience took offence, which then triggered a year-long investigation by the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit, whom we’ve never met and sounds like something out of Kafka, is a total waste of the licence fee and is another example of the BBC’s paranoia about causing offence. HIGNFY is set up to be comically and intentionally offensive.”

Mulville joked: “My own definition of a c**t is someone who spends all day looking for problems that don’t exist.”

The BBC has been approached for comment.

In its ruling, the BBC’s complaints unit said: “There was no justification for a comment which presented Victoria Beckham as equivalent to a particularly offensive word.” The ruling added: “The relevant BBC editorial guidelines do not require programmes to avoid giving offence but do require that any offence should be editorially justified.”

The Executive Complaints Unit said its ruling was reported to senior leaders in BBC content. The original Have I Got News for You episode was edited and re-uploaded to iPlayer. The joke no longer appears in the version available on the streaming service.

“The Attorney General for the lead Plaintiff State, California, publicly criticized the very behavioral remedies that the parties now ask the Court to approve,”exclaims an amicus brief just filed in federal court by the Block the Merger coalition to take one last swing at stopping the antitrust settlement deal for Paramount‘s $111 billion purchase of Warner Bros Discovery.

“But whatever the reasons for the States’ about-face, neither time nor circumstance changes the fact that this merger lessens competition.”

The September 21 announcement of an agreement between a dozen blue state AGs and David Ellison in the July filed antitrust suit made it look like the $80 billion debt heavy ParaBros meld was finally and truly a done deal. However, with U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin Thursday granting 11th hour motions of objection by BTM and other Ellison foes and giving them until midnight on September 24 to file, closure has now been delayed.

A delay, with Judge Martinez-Olguin also now pushing any settlement sign-off until at least noon on September 28 as Paramount responses to more concerns raised by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), that cold see Ellison having to begin paying that dreaded $7 million a day ticking fee to WBD shareholders starting October 1. A delay that Block the Merger, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and others make very evident that would like to see as permanent as possible.

“The structure of the proposed consent decree puts Plaintiff States in the position of simultaneously representing two sets of stakeholders whose fundamental interests trade off,” BTM’s brief says.

Noting, among a variety of critiques, that while guilds like the WGA have been promised nearly $18 million for their oversubscribed health plan ( AKA: “earmarked payments for tens of millions of dollars”) if the merger goes through, independent vendors and contractors will get almost nothing “That is precisely the kind of conflict that makes representation inadequate and a settlement procedurally unfair,” the coalition of the Free Press, the Committee for the First Amendment, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Future Film Coalition and the International Documentary Association argues in its hopes of convincing Judge Martinez-Olguin to “deny the Joint Motion to enter the proposed consent decree.”

in their own brief filed in the midnight hour, LULAC and a group of Black pastors mine a similar vein as BTM – aka, CA AG Rob Bonta sold the industry out by bucklingto Paramount’s leaked threats to leave the state and to pressure from ambitious Dems like Gavin Newsom to make a deal ASAP.

Highlighting perceived short coming of the settlement deal and its granting of more power and reach to fatcats, LULAC says: “The proposed decree leaves that loss of independent decision-making largely intact. Its temporary film commitments measure releases and spending without preserving competition over which projects receive support. Its cable provisions regulate negotiations without preserving competition over the perspectives that are broadcast. And its news board, appointed by and reporting to the merged company, cannot replace the independent sources of programming the transaction eliminates. These defects concern the competitive harms the States pleaded, including diminished quality, variety, and viewpoints.”

Due to the late hour, Paramount had nothing to say about these latest filings and the latest twist in their merger saga.

Plus, the Ellison-run Paramoint kinda said it all just after Block the Merger first filed their motion early Thursday to be granted the right to brief.

“Any briefing and comment process that would enable non-parties to delay the closing of this transaction—inflicting massive harm on Paramount—without filing their own antitrust action, making the showing required under the Clayton Act to obtain preliminary injunctive relief, or posting a bond to protect Defendants from the harm caused by such delay would be improper,” Paramount said in its own (unsuccessful) opposition to BTM’s briefing wishes.

I’ll get you a ruling in due course,” Judge Martinez-Olguin promised today in a virtual hearing on the now paused settlement. Having to also push back against Sen. Booker’s proposal of an independent review of the deal and the settlement, due course could be either sooner or later for Paramount.

EXCLUSIVE: Rob Minkoff, co-director of Disney’s classic animated hit The Lion King, is in advanced discussions to develop and executive produce Storm Dogs, an upcoming family adventure title from Tilly Norwood creator Particle 6.

Minkoff, who also directed Stuart Little, will be the creative lead on the upcoming feature film and will work closely with Particle 6 CEO Eline van der Velden on developing the story, characters and screenplay ahead of production.

Based on an original idea from Van der Velden, the story is set in an English village during a devastating storm. When two-year-old Poppy is unexpectedly separated from the adult caring for her, five different dogs must overcome their instincts, and one another, to bring her safely home.

Set over the course of 24 hours, the film follows the unlikely pack as it carries Poppy across flooded fields, damaged bridges and a countryside transformed by the storm. What begins as a desperate journey gradually turns five mismatched dogs into a family and forces Poppy’s dog-fearing mother to see them in an entirely new light.

The film will combine live-action performances with photorealistic animated characters. Human roles will be filmed “conventionally”, according to a statement, while the dogs and Poppy will be created through an approach that brings together live-action performance, traditional filmmaking techniques and emerging AI tools. Production is slated for 2027.

The Particle 6 creative team says it is developing a “performance-driven process that translates an actor’s facial expressions, physicality, timing and emotional choices into the animated characters.” This, it says, will enable the actor shape and complete the performance.

“Rob has helped create some of cinema’s most enduring animal characters,” said Van der Velden. “His understanding of character, comedy and emotional storytelling makes him an extraordinary creative partner for Storm Dogs. This film presents a challenge that would be extraordinarily difficult to achieve through conventional production alone: a toddler and five dogs carrying much of the story through extreme weather and hazardous terrain. By bringing performers, filmmakers and emerging tools together, we can attempt something unusually ambitious while keeping every creative decision in human hands.”

Minkoff added: “I have spent much of my career looking for ways to create animal characters who are funny, emotionally truthful and completely alive. When I visited Particle 6 in London, I found a group of filmmakers who care deeply about story, character and performance. They are also serious about exploring how new production methods can expand how filmmakers’ imaginations are realised on screen. Storm Dogs is a wonderful opportunity to develop that approach together in the service of a story with real jeopardy, heart and humor.”

Van der Velden added: “I’m not interested in AI as a replacement for human creativity. But I believe it has extraordinary potential to transform the process of making motion pictures, to help filmmakers manifest what they imagine with greater freedom and fewer limitations. We are still in the pioneering phase of this transformation, and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to help define how it can be used responsibly.”

Particle 6 made waves at the Zurich Film Festival last year when its AI actor Tilly Norwood was launched at the festival’s flagship industry event Zurich Summit, sparking a global debate about the use of AI in the entertainment space. Van der Velden is returning to speak to the Summit this year to reflect on the aftermath of that viral story. As previously announced, Tilly Norwood is set to star in her own feature Misaligned, which is being developed at Particle 6.