One of Britain’s most legendary TV dramatists, Sir Phil Redmond, is no stranger to tackling difficult issues on screen.

Courting controversy famously with his hard-hitting storylines on his children’s show Grange Hill for the BBC in 1978, before he switched over to Channel 4 to give it its two most prominent soaps, Brookside (1982) and later Hollyoaks (1995).

He’s been a pivotal figure at Channel 4 from its inception, widely considered to be a father to the channel.

While he’s been responsible for putting some of TV’s most impactful storylines to air for them – from the first lesbian kiss, to bodies buried under patios – off-screen nowadays, he’s equally radical about what should happen.

“Channel 4’s job in 1980 was to provide a platform for the voices, ideas, and people that weren’t able to break through into television. They did a fantastic job. I was part of that, and now it’s done.”

It’s not that he wants to kill off Channel 4 but – as broadcasting bosses gather for Edinburgh’s annual TV Festival – he believes they urgently should be talking about mergers.

A suggestion which goes down about as well as you might imagine, he says, when he brings it up with those at the top.

He laughs: “The people with the brains think it’s a good idea, the people who’ve got the expense accounts think it’s horrendous.”

A ‘struggling’ BBC trying to ‘survive’

With charter renewal talks under way to determine the BBC’s future funding, Sir Phil says “there’s only one question, and that is what’s going to happen to the BBC?”

“We’ve got two public sector broadcasters – the BBC and Channel 4 – both owned by the government, by us as the taxpayers, and what they’re trying to do now is survive, right?

“No bureaucracy ever deconstructs itself… the BBC is struggling… Channel 4 has got about a billion quid coming in a year. If you mix that, all the transmissions, all the back office stuff, all the technical stuff, all that cash… you can keep that kind of coterie of expertise on youth programming and then say ‘don’t worry about the money, just go out and do what you used to do, upset people!’.”

How feasible would that be?

Redmond claims, practically, you could pull it off in a week – “we could do it now, it’s very simple, it’s all about keyboards and switches”.

But the screenwriter admits that winning people over mentally to his way of thinking would take a few years of persuading.

As for his thoughts on what could replace the BBC licence fee, he says charging people to download BBC apps on their phones seems like an obvious source of income.

“There are 25 million licences and roughly 90 million mobile phones. If you put a small levy on each mobile phone, you could reduce the actual cost of the licence fee right down, and then it could just be tagged on to VAT.

“Those parts are just moving the tax system around a bit. [then] you wouldn’t have to worry about all the criminality and single mothers being thrown in jail, all this kind of nonsense.”

‘Subsidising through streaming is not the answer’

Earlier this year, Peter Kosminsky, the director of historical drama Wolf Hall, suggested a levy on UK streaming revenues could fund more high-end British TV on the BBC.

Sir Phil describes that as “a sign of desperation”.

“If you can’t actually survive within your own economic basis, you shouldn’t be doing it.

“I don’t think top slicing or subsidising one aspect of the business is the answer, you have to just look at the whole thing as a totality.”

Since selling his production company, Mersey Television, two decades ago, much of his current work has focused on acting as an ambassador for the culture and creative industries.

Although he’s taken a step away from television, he admits he’s disappointed by how risk-averse programme makers appear to have become.

“Dare I say it? There needs to be an intellectual foundation to it all.”

TV’s ‘missing a trick’

He believes TV bosses are too scared of being fined by Ofcom, and that’s meant soaps are not going as far as they should.

“The benefits [system], you know, immigration, all these things are really relevant subjects for drama to bring out all the arguments, the conflicts.

“The majority of the people know the benefits system is broken, that it needs to be fixed because they see themselves living on their estate with a 10 or 12-year-old car and then there’s someone else down the road who knows how to fill a form in, and he’s driving around in a £65k BMW, right? Those debates would be really great to bring out on TV, they’re missing a trick.”

While some of TV’s biggest executives are slated to speak at the Edinburgh Television Festival, Redmond is not convinced they will be open to listening.

“They will go where the perceived wisdom is as to where the industry is going. The fact that the industry is taking a wrong turn, we really need somebody else to come along and go ‘Oi!'”

When I ask if that could be him, he laughs. Cue dramatic music and closing credits. As plot twists go, the idea of one of TV’s most radical voices making a boardroom comeback to stir the pot, realistic or not, is at the very least food for thought for the industry.

Edinburgh TV Festival runs from 19 – 22 August.

A woman who was charged with selling Friends star Matthew Parry the dose of the drug that killed him has agreed to plead guilty.

Jasveen Sangha, known as the “Ketamine Queen”, is the fifth and final defendant to strike a plea deal with prosecutors, avoiding a trial that was set to take place in September.

The 42-year-old agreed to plead guilty to five federal criminal charges, including providing the Ketamine that led to Perry’s death, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

She agreed to plead guilty to five federal criminal charges, including providing the Ketamine that led to Perry’s death, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

Prosecutors had cast Sangha, a dual US and UK national, as a prolific drug dealer known to her customers as the “Ketamine Queen”, often using the term in court documents and even including it in the official name of the case.

She agreed to plead guilty to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury.

Sangha will officially change her plea to guilty at an upcoming hearing, where sentencing will be scheduled, prosecutors said.

She is facing up to 45 years in prison.

Sangha and a doctor named Salvador Plasencia, who signed his own plea deal in June, had been the primary targets of the investigation.

Three other defendants – Mark Chavez, who it was claimed bought the drug from Sangha, Kenneth Iwamasa, and Erik Flemin – agreed to plead guilty last year in exchange for their cooperation, which included statements implicating Sangha and Plasencia.

Prosecutors allege Chavez funnelled ketamine to Plasencia, securing some of the drug from a wholesale distributor through a fraudulent prescription.

In one instance, prosecutors allege that Plasencia “charged Perry $2,000 (£1,500) a vial that cost Dr Chavez approximately $12 (£9)”.

Perry died in his home in October 2023, aged 54, after getting ketamine from his regular doctor for treatment of depression, which is an increasingly common use for the surgical anaesthetic.

The actor was taking ketamine six to eight times a day before he died, according to court documents.

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An Ozzy Osbourne documentary has disappeared from the BBC’s schedule without explanation.

The film was billed by producers as “a moving and inspirational account” of the last chapter of the metal legend’s life.

It was meant to air at 9pm on Monday on BBC One – as well as be available on iPlayer – but an episode of Fake Or Fortune? has replaced it.

Sky News has contacted the BBC for comment on why the programme, called Ozzy Osbourne: Coming Home, has been pulled.

The project was filmed over three years as Ozzy and his family returned to the UK, and was initially conceived as a series entitled Home to Roost.

However, as the singer’s health got worse it morphed into a one-off.

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The BBC reported the show would reveal the “extraordinary rollercoaster” of the Osbournes’ lives as Ozzy tries “heroically” to get fit enough to perform again.

It’s said to feature “unique and intimate access” to the family, including Ozzy’s children, Jack and Kelly, who appeared in the reality series that made them household names in the early 2000s.

The Black Sabbath frontman, who had Parkinson’s disease, died last month – just a few weeks after his final all-star gig at Birmingham’s Villa Park.

Fans packed the city centre and chanted his name when his hearse passed through on 30 July.

His wife, Sharon, was in tears as she got out to see the mass of flowers left for him at “Sabbath Bridge”.

The New York Times said his death certificate gave the cause as cardiac arrest, but the family hasn’t commented.