Category: Media
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Too Demanding For Watch
There’s a wonderful story in this week’s Broadcast magazine. In a piece that explains how UKTV chanel “Watch” is having a bit of a rethink, it explains that challenging fare like Cranford, Mistresses and Love Soup is too “demanding” for its viewers. Instead they’re going to show more Dancing with the Stars and Wipeout (aka…
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Celebrities Inappropriate Advertising
Last Friday was the last in Clive James’ current run of A Point of View (Harold Evans takes over this Friday). You have about 24 hours to download the podcast, otherwise you’ll just have to read his words. James got on to the habit of Hollywood actors promoting products that once they’d never have been…
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Media Talk on The Guardian
Matt Wells had something of a moan this week about what he called an advert for DAB that he’d heard on the BBC this week. He saw it as a straight ad for BBC viewers and listeners to go out and buy a DAB digital radio. A couple of things Matt: The BBC did exactly…
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Televised Sport Update
Last week, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided that it wouldn’t award the EBU the rights to the 2014 winter Olympics and the 2016 summer games. In the past the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has collectively bought the rights to the Olympics for the past fifty years. All the public service broadcasters chip in and…
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Local News
This morning, the BBC Trust rejected plans for a local BBC video news service. Concurrently, Ofcom published the results of its Market Impact Assessment and concluded that the plans would have had a significant negative impact on commercial news providers. The BBC proposal would have seen it producing more localised news which would be delivered…
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BBC Trust on Jonathan Ross
The BBC Trust reported today on lots of things. Of most interest to the press was the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand fiasco. But frankly, that’s so dull now, I can’t be bothered to get into it at all. Tomorrow’s papers will be all over it. Of far more interest, in the same report, is the response…
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Children in Need
I never know quite what to make of Children in Need. Simplistically it’s simply a fund-raiser to help children in variety of ways shapes and forms. And nobody can argue with that. But there are the other elements of it, that I always find uncomfortable. It’s notable that Channel 4 always gives its comedy programmes…
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Radio At The Edge
Apologies upfront for the rawness of this text. I’ll tidy it up later. To Radio at the Edge (where there’s some free WiFi), to hear about the latest goings on in the audio world. After introductions from James Cridland, and an opening from Nick Wallis, a familiar face – to me at least – Clive…
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Picking Up A Souvenir
I like a souvenir as much as anyone. So with Obama getting in, picking a copy of that day’s New York Times seemed like an idea. Copies are printed in the UK, but it’s a “lite” version and time differences mean that it has to go to press very early. This evening on NBC’s Nightly…
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Poor Journalism This Sunday
Finding poor journlism in the Sunday papers isn’t really hard, but The Observer had this story in yesterday’s paper. It begins: Media regulator Ofcom warned BBC bosses about lax editorial procedures on Russell Brand’s BBC 6 Music show over a year ago, it emerged last night. In a ruling published 15 months ago, it criticised…
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Overblown Nonsense
So the Ross/Brand things has blown up out of all proportion. Seriously. The scale of the media frenzy is in no way proportional to what actually happened. When I wrote about this the other day, I did so in a way that discussed something that would be of interest to people who read Media Guardian.…
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TV Programme Making By Rote
Word magazine’s website has a great list of things that people find annoying – or the dumbest things in entertainment. It’s a great list, and you can’t help but nod as contributors add more and more. Someone halfway down the list mentions half-hour TV programmes that throw-forward to the second 15 minutes just before the…
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The State of the Product Placement Nation
A cracking article from New York magazine on product placement and it’s implications. Well worth a read.