Monkey goes to the Royal Television Society journalism awards

Taming the BBC beast Monkey's speech of the night at the Royal Television Society journalism awards on Wednesday in London was from Mark Austin after ITV's News at Ten won news programme of the year. He said News at Ten was a "brand that was unceremoniously and wrongly dumped... what's particularly satisfying is to do that head to head with the beast that is the BBC 10 [o'clock news] with all their resources". Sadly there were few BBC big beasts in the room to hear it. Had they got wind of the fact that the Beeb won just three awards, Monkey wonders? Spooked by the festive spirit ITN had a lot to celebrate last night, scooping six awards. Unfortunately they also won the ill-timed champagne cork pop of the evening, which came during a tense moment in a film about troops clearing mines in Afghanistan. Monkey nearly jumped out of its skin.