English Entertainment
English entertainment cast who can sing in real life too
MUMBAI: A lot of TV series which show the actors sing, lose out on authenticity if the performers are not up to snuff or if there is a mismatch between the singers’ voice and actors’ personality. So, the success mantra of TV shows, especially the ones with music as the essence, lies in casting actors who amaze the viewer’s not just with their spectacular performance onscreen but also with their singing ability.
Here’s a list of TV series where actors do not just lip sync the songs featured on the show because they can sing in real life too:
Empire
The American musical drama television series that centers on a hip hop music company has a cast of actual hip hop musicians and actors who can sing. Right from Terence Howard who has produced his own music album to Taraji Henson who has even won an Oscar for one of her songs, the series with its perfect musical cast never fails to fulfill its promise of being a seriously entertaining one. And the best part of the series is that the musical aspect is very reality based where performances come with the organic development of the characters as artists. Empire season 1 and 2 has started airing on weekdays from 19th May, 2016 at 10pm on Star World and Star World HD
Nashville
The stars of the American musical drama Nashville sing and not just for the show! The entire cast sings the songs for real and breathes life into lyrics that can keep the audience hooked. While the Stella sisters sang their way to stardom through Nashville, Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere are the award winning actresses the show owes its success to.
Smash
The runner up of the fifth season of American Idol, Katherine McPhee gained her fame in Smash, the musical drama which revolves around the creation of a new Broadway musical. And that’s not all; the other character Ivy Lynn who also competes to be Monroe on the show has been played by Megan Kathleen who has gained prominence due to her several roles in Broadway musicals.
Glee
Another musical dramedy which centers its plot on the high school glee club earned its fans primarily because the cast put together performance after performance with great vocals and stellar choreography. In fact, Matthew Morrison was cast after Murphy spent three months observing actors on Broadway. Chris Colfer and Jayma Mays are also singers who have contributed towards the numerous songs which have been a commercial success.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
A show without which the list will definitely be incomplete is the series that has changed the viewers’ perception about musical shows, by featuring two to three songs in each episode to narrate the plot musically is Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. The backbone of the show is undoubtedly the Golden Globe award winning actress, Rachel Bloom, who is not just a comedian or writer but also a fabulous musician. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has been renewed for season 2.
UK: The aerial is losing its grip. As broadband becomes the default way Britons watch television, the UK is edging towards a decisive, and divisive, question: should Freeview be switched off by 2034? The issue, highlighted in reporting by The Guardian, has exposed deep fault lines over access, affordability and the future of public service broadcasting.
For nearly 25 years, Freeview has delivered free-to-air television from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to almost every corner of the country. Even now, it remains the UK’s largest TV platform, used in more than 16m homes and on around 10m main household sets. Yet the same broadcasters that built it are now pressing for its closure within eight years.
Their case rests on a structural shift in viewing. Smart TVs, superfast broadband and the Netflix-led streaming boom have pulled audiences online. Advertising economics have followed. By 2034, the number of homes using Freeview as their main TV set is forecast to fall from a peak of almost 12m in 2012 to fewer than 2m, making digital terrestrial television, or DTT, increasingly costly to sustain.
But critics say the rush to switch off risks abandoning those least able, or least willing, to move online.
“I don’t want to be choosing apps and making new accounts,” says Lynette, 80, from Kent. “It is time-consuming and irritating trying to work out where I want to be, to remember the sequence of clicks, with hieroglyphics instead of words. If I make a mistake I have to start again.”
Lynette is among nearly 100,000 people who have signed a “save Freeview” petition launched by campaign group Silver Voices. She fears the government is about to “take [Freeview] away from me and others who either don’t like, can’t afford, or can’t use online versions”.
Official figures underline the fault lines. A report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that by 2035, 1.8m homes will still depend on Freeview. Ofcom’s analysis shows those households are more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and based in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Freeview is owned by the public service broadcasters through Everyone TV, which also operates Freesat and the newer streaming platform Freely. After two years of review, DCMS is expected to set out its position soon, drawing on three options proposed by Ofcom: a costly upgrade of Freeview’s ageing technology; maintaining a bare-bones service with only core PSB channels; or a full switch-off during the 2030s.
The broadcasters have rallied behind the third option. They argue that 2034 is the logical cut-off, when transmission contracts with network operator Arqiva expire. By then, they say, the cost of broadcasting to a dwindling audience will far outweigh the returns from TV advertising.
Ofcom agrees a crunch point is approaching. In July, the regulator warned of a “tipping point” within the next few years, after which it will no longer be commercially viable for broadcasters to carry the costs of DTT.
Others see risks beyond economics. Questions remain over whether internet TV can reliably deliver emergency broadcasts, such as the daily Covid updates, in the way that universally available DTT can. The UK radio industry has also warned that an internet-only future for TV could push up distribution costs and force some radio stations off air if PSBs no longer share Arqiva’s mast network.
“It is a political hot potato,” says Dennis Reed, founder of Silver Voices, who says he has “dissociated” his organisation from the government’s stakeholder forum, which he believes is “heavily biased” towards streaming.
The Future TV Taskforce, representing the PSBs, counters that moving online could “close the digital divide once and for all”. “We want to be able to plan to ensure that no one is left behind,” a spokesperson says, adding that rising DTT costs could otherwise mean cuts to programme budgets.
The numbers show the scale of the challenge. Of the 1.8m Freeview-dependent homes projected for 2035, around 1.1m are expected to have broadband but not use it for TV. The remaining 700,000 are forecast to lack a broadband connection altogether.
Veterans of the analogue switch-off, completed in 2012 after 76 years, recall similar fears of “TV blackout chaos”. Around 6 per cent of households were labelled “digital refuseniks”, yet a targeted help scheme and a national campaign, fronted by a robot called Digit Al voiced by Matt Lucas, delivered a largely smooth transition.
This time, the BBC is less keen to foot the bill. Tim Davie, the outgoing director general, has said the corporation should not fund a comparable support programme for a Freeview switch-off.
Research for Sky by Oliver & Ohlbaum suggests that with early awareness campaigns and digital inclusion measures, only about 330,000 households would ultimately need hands-on help ahead of a 2034 shutdown.
Meanwhile, viewing habits continue to fragment. Audience body Barb says 7 per cent of UK households no longer own a TV set, choosing to watch on other devices. In December, YouTube overtook the BBC’s combined channels in total UK viewing across TVs, smartphones and tablets, albeit measured at a minimum of three minutes.
That shift may accelerate. YouTube has recently blocked Barb and its partner Kantar from accessing viewing session data, limiting transparency just as online platforms consolidate power.
“When the government chose British Satellite Broadcasting as the ‘winner’ in satellite TV it was Rupert Murdoch’s Sky instead that came out on top,” says a senior TV executive quoted by The Guardian. “There already is such an outsider ready to be the winner in the transition to internet TV; it is YouTube.”
Freeview’s future now hangs on a familiar British dilemma: modernise fast and risk exclusion, or protect universality and pay the price. Either way, the aerial’s days as king of the living room look numbered.
