The Seven Network has alleged that 13 more women came forward with complaints about the conduct of Robert Ovadia since the senior reporter was sacked in late June, the federal court has heard.

In documents filed in the court late on Thursday, Ovadia’s lawyers argued their client’s conduct did not amount to sexual harassment or serious misconduct and alleged he was unlawfully sacked.

Ovadia was accused of creating edited photos and a caricature of “Person A” and sending them to that person, an act which did not constitute sexual harassment, the documents claimed.

He also allegedly sent a photo copied from the internet of a flaccid penis to “Person B” which was not of a sexual nature and did not amount to sexual harassment, the documents further claimed.

“No reasonable employer could have formed form the view that the conduct amounted to sexual harassment, the photo was not conduct of a sexual nature,” the statement of claim said.

The veteran Sydney reporter was stood down in June while Seven conducted an internal investigation into allegations of “inappropriate behaviour”.

Two weeks later the 51-year-old was sacked, and he said the allegations were “malicious”.

“Yes I’ve been sacked and there will be more to say about that in the appropriate forum at the appropriate time,” Ovadia told Guardian Australia at the time.

Ovadia has maintained the allegations are false and hired workplace lawyer John Laxon of Sydney’s Laxon Lex Lawyers to represent him.

He filed a wrongful dismissal claim against the Seven Network and Seven West Media’s news and editor-in-chief, Anthony De Ceglie.

At the first case management hearing on Thursday, counsel for Seven, Vanja Bulut, said the defendants had email evidence of complaints about Ovadia’s conduct from another 13 women.

“Subsequent to the applicant’s dismissal, 13 more females have come forward with complaints in relation to his conduct, and they’re now subject to investigation,” Bulut told federal court justice Elizabeth Raper.

“The applicant has been put on notice of that. That is, my instructors have written to our learned friend’s instructors, setting out the additional allegations that have come to light subsequent to the dismissal and to the extent that those allegations are recorded in documents.”

Bulut said the conduct that had come to light “does provide a basis to summarily terminate” and Seven will rely on the additional allegations to defend its case.

Barrister Andrew Gotting, for Ovadia, argued his client had been sent some information, but it had been redacted and lacked detail.

“That redaction has occurred without the consent of the applicant,” Gotting said. “There is much material that is being relied upon, apparently for the purpose of resisting a contractual claim, that has not been provided to the applicant.”

Gotting asked the court to order that Seven file its evidence first. “Where there are allegations of serious misconduct, the onus falls on the employer,” he said. Raper denied that request.

Bulut opposed Ovadia’s request for mediation, saying Seven “sees no benefit in the mediation”.

But Raper ordered the parties to attend mediation at a date to be determined in October before a judicial registrar and said they must all attend in person. An earlier Fair Work Commission mediation, which failed, was conducted by video link.

If successful, the mediation may result in the case being settled before trial.

Raper ordered that the respondents file and serve their defences to the statement of claim by 12 September and the applicant to file and serve any reply by 12 October.

The proceedings have been listed for case management on 10 February 2025.

After the hearing, Ovadia told Guardian Australia: “The claims are baseless and Seven has never provided evidence despite repeated requests. Even today, no evidence to support any of this – just a dirty tactic and headline to bully me away from defending myself.”

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Prepare for more mind-bending and dystopian telly in 2025 – because Black Mirror is returning with a starry cast for season seven.

In news confirmed this week, Netflix has announced a huge list of names for the forthcoming season, and teased a follow-up to a fan-favourite episode from season four.

Charlie Brooker’s acclaimed sci-fi anthology series, which speculatively explores society’s relationship with technology, is returning with names including Crazy Rich Asians actor Awkwafina, former Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi, The Crown’s Emma Corrin, Insecure’s Issa Rae, Girlfriends star Tracee Ellis Ross and IT Crowd actor Chris O’Dowd.

In news shared during Netflix’s fandom-focused Geek Week, other names announced include Patsy Ferran, Paul Giamatti, Lewis Gribben, Cristin Milioti, Billy Magnussen, Jimmy Simpson, Milanka Brooks, Osy Ikhile, Rashida Jones, Siena Kelly, Rosy McEwen, Paul G. Raymond and Succession actor Harriet Walter.

The new season is also teased to include a follow-up to “USS Callister”, a much-loved opening episode for season four, which aired in 2017.

“USS Callister” followed a troubled computer programmer named Robert Daly (Jesse Plemon) who has a desire to possess his co-workers, by stealing their DNA, feeding it into his computer, and introducing digital clones of them into the world of the USS Enterprise of Space Fleet, where Daly gives himself a Captain Kirk-like vibe as Captain Robert Daly.

Teasing the news at Netflix’s Geek Week, the show’s creator Charlie Brooker told fans they would recognise a “certain spaceship from one of our episodes reappearing”.

He continued: “We’ve done a sequel for the first time in Black Mirror history. Normally, I kill off all the characters at the end of an episode, and I kept some of ’em alive. I’m growing as a human.”

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So far, we know that the forthcoming season will consist of six episodes and air on Netflix sometime in 2025.

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Brooker told fans the show was going “back to basics” and channelling the “OG Black Mirror”.

“You can expect a mix of genres and styles,” Brooker said. “We’ve got six episodes this time, and two of them are basically feature-length. Some of them are deeply unpleasant, some are quite funny, and some are emotional.”

“We have evolved to a place where it’s kind of OG Black Mirror this season,” he said. “So it’s all sci-fi, techno-dystopia.”

In a cryptic and glitchy video shared on X/Twitter, the Black Mirror account teased the names of the cast as well as directors and writers from previous episodes.

In true Black Mirror style, the caption read: “TCKR_Confidential_NotForDistribution.mp4” as a series of analogue computer images and “loading” messages flash on the screen.

The first two seasons of the series aired on Channel 4 in 2011 and 2013 respectively, before it was acquired by Netflix, where it returned with its latest four seasons.

Within days of her appointment as culture secretary, Lisa Nandy met one of the few prominent BBC presenters who is not currently embroiled in a scandal: Hacker T Dog, the puppet star of CBBC.

“Hacker, I don’t know if you remember but you once met my little boy and made him cry,” Nandy told the troublesome terrier at the BBC’s Salford studios last month. “So I’m afraid I am announcing today that I am shutting the BBC down.”

“Hooray! It worked!” replied the dog.

Watching this exchange between two Wiganers was the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, who will be hoping for a slightly different outcome from his future negotiations with Nandy.

He now faces the single challenge that will define his legacy at the corporation: whether he can strike a deal with the government over the long-term financial future of the BBC.

Negotiations over the future of the licence fee – and whether it is retained in its current form or replaced with a subscription model or funded by a new tax – are expected to begin in January and last two years, with a deal needing to be in place by the end of the current royal charter in 2027.

Labour’s election victory – and Keir Starmer’s vague commitment to the licence fee – suggested the clouds may be parting for the BBC after 14 years of cuts by Tory-led governments.

Yet one BBC insider warned “don’t count your chickens yet”, as the political threat is replaced by an acknowledged threat of irrelevance with 500,000 households a year cancelling their TV licence. As a result, there is a growing acceptance that extreme thinking might be required to secure public service broadcasting.

One radical suggestion is to consider merging Channel 4, which was threatened with privatisation by the Conservatives, with the BBC to create a public service television powerhouse. Two television industry sources have said that the BBC discussed a merger as part of the next round of licence fee negotiations.

Such a move would combine two publicly controlled broadcasters, add £1bn of revenue to the BBC’s balance sheet, and could enable Channel 4’s profits to subsidise other parts of the BBC.

Phil Redmond, the veteran television executive who created Brookside and Hollyoaks for Channel 4, is a proponent of a merger. He said that, in the face of declining youth audiences, a deal between the BBC and Channel 4 would secure the long-term future of public service broadcasting in the UK: “Reforming the BBC has to include reforming Channel 4. The big debate is not about who is sitting in what desk in what building.”

He said it could enable cost-cutting at Channel 4 and free up its budget to be spent on commissioning new programmes. “You could get rid of a lot of the technical side, the admin, HR, finance, all that stuff can go. The only thing you’d keep is the sales team for a while,” he added.

Another commercial television executive said they had heard the BBC has looked at a merger with Channel 4 under which the commercial channel would operate as a semi-independent entity under BBC Studios, the corporation’s for-profit subsidiary.

They said this could be similar to how the BBC owns UKTV, the parent company of Dave, and such a move could “soothe” independent production companies worried about the commercial broadcaster’s longtime financial future. Channel 4 could then act as a talent incubator for British formats created by BBC Studios that could then be sold around the world.

A BBC spokesperson said: “We do not recognise what you’ve put to us. There are no ongoing discussions regarding the acquisition of Channel 4 and nor are we developing a proposal to do so.”

A government source also said a merger of the two public service broadcasters was “not a proposal we are currently considering”.

Another radical idea for the future of the BBC is mutualisation, with all licence fee payers given a stake in the broadcaster on a model similar to the Co-operative Group or a building society. Nandy proposed such a scheme during her 2020 leadership campaign, saying it would allow licence fee payers to “decide the trade-offs that the BBC must make to secure its future” while ensuring the organisation is protected from meddling by politicians withholding funding or appointing board members.

The BBC could also ask the government to pick up the bill for the World Service. This used to be subsidised by the Foreign Office as a tool of British soft power but the cost was largely lumped on to licence fee payers as part of coalition-era cuts. Yet convincing the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to hand over hundreds of millions of pounds for overseas broadcasting would be a tough ask, given the government’s messaging about difficult decisions.

The BBC’s overall audience remains enormous, especially among older age groups, but the future is less rosy. A growing number of young people barely engage with the broadcaster’s content, undermining the long-term case for a universal licence fee.

Less than half of British 16- to 24-year-olds watch any linear television in a given week, according to the latest Ofcom research, raising questions about how long the BBC can maintain dozens of separate television and radio channels – and when it should start to close outlets and lump everything on its digital offering.

This combination of financial pressure and changing audience habits could force Davie and Nandy to envisage a radically different BBC, doing less with less but still acting as a hub for British public service television output. In a sign of the times, this week the BBC began experimenting with using artificial intelligence to produce transcriptions of BBC Sounds content – while also preparing for a further round of human job cuts in the autumn.

The hope for the BBC is that Nandy accepts warnings from the British media industry about the existential threat it is facing. The playwright James Graham, responsible for the hit show Sherwood, last week told the Edinburgh television festival that the UK is being too complacent about the future of the BBC and other public service broadcasters: “We will miss them, if they ever go.”