Edinburgh books Shirky, Kring

Jamie Oliver focus of interview

By STEVE CLARKE

LONDON — U.S. new media guru Clay Shirky, who popularized the phrase “the Internet runs on love,” is to give the Futureview address at this year’s Edinburgh International Television Festival.

Shirky’s talk will be based on his recent book “Here Comes Everybody” exploring how web social networks are changing society.

Other speakers unveiled for this year’s talking shop that unspools August 22, include “Heroes” creator Tim Kring and Brit screenwriter Russell T. Davies. Both will give master classes.

British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver will be the subject of the Richard Dunn Memorial interview while Armando Iannucci, the writer, helmer and performer, who is making his first feature film “In the Loop,” is to deliver the Alternative MacTaggart lecture.

The gabfest hopes to strike a more positive note this year following last year's succession of fakery scandals, including TV phone-in fraud, which led to much soul-searching at Edinburgh 07.

Festival’s executive committee chair Endemol U.K. topper Tim Hinks said: “Don’t believe the hype or the miserablists — TV and creativity are in great shape.

“This year the television festival is unashamedly upbeat, featuring an impossibly mouth-watering mix of celebrity and talent from in front of the camera and behind, and from all platforms.”

The talking shop’s flagship MacTaggart lecture is being given by Peter Fincham, the U.K. TV topper forced to resign from the BBC after footage of the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, used at a press launch to trail a documentary, was edited out of sequence.

Fincham was booked to be the star turn at Edinburgh before he was hired by U.K. terrestrial web, ITV, as its new director of television.