world record for the longest on-screen kiss at three minutes, fifteen seconds. The kiss, featuring Sarah Baxendale who plays Ellie Hunter and Marcus Patric (Ben Davies) surpasses the previous record of three minutes, five seconds held since 1941 by Regis Toomey and Jane Wyman in the film You're in the Army Now. 3 July – David Liddiment announces he will step down as ITV's head of programming. His decision comes after the network's viewership dropped below that of the BBC and following the collapse of ITV Digital. 4 July – A joint venture between the BBC and media firm Crown Castle is awarded the licences for a digital terrestrial television service to replace ITV Digital. The free-to-air service will include 24 channels from the BBC and commercial television, including three from Sky. 6 July Lock Keepers Cottage in Bow, East London, used as the setting for The Big Breakfast which was axed in March, is to be sold as a private house for £1,000,000, it is reported. Home on Their Own debuts on ITV1, presented by Ulrika Jonsson. 7 July Disc jockey Chris Evans has signed a deal with Channel 5 to produce a five-nights-a-week chat show that will air for 13 weeks from September. London's Burning returns to ITV for its fourteenth series with a new set of opening and closing credits. 11 July – BBC One airs a special edition of Parkinson in which Michael Parkinson travels to South Africa to talk with its former President Nelson Mandela. 12 July Dani Behr and Joe Mace are dropped from The Saturday Show as the programme struggles to compete with its ITV1 rival SM:TV. They will present their last editions of the show in September. After reprising his EastEnders role as Ricky Butcher for a one-off special earlier in the year, Sid Owen is to make a permanent return to the soap, it is confirmed. 13 July BBC One airs the first Sport Relief telethon. Channel 5 airs The Great Dome Robbery, Gabriel Range's film about the 2000 Millennium Dome raid, starring Craig Fairbrass. 22 July – Channel 4 is criticised by the Independent Television Commission after explicit content in Brookside was aired before the watershed. The scenes involved the characters Max and Jacqui Farnham who became embroiled in a passionate embrace after Jacqui was taken to hospital following a car crash. 23 July – BBC Two airs a special