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RAJAR Q4 2022
This post is brought to you in association with RALF from DP Software and Services. I’ve used RALF for the many years, and it’s my favourite RAJAR analysis tool. So I am delighted that I continue to be able to bring you this RAJAR analysis in association with RALF. For more details on the product, contact Deryck Pritchard via…
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Algorithmic Promotion Shouldn’t Be Everything…
As an addendum to my last blog on the lack of physical media for the leading Oscar contender, Everything Everywhere All At Once, I thought it was worth seeing how sharp the streamers have been reacting to yesterday’s Oscar nominations buzz. The nominations came out on Tuesday lunchtime, UK time, and I’m writing this a…
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Everything Not Everywhere on Home Media
Yesterday, the 2023 Oscar nominations were announced, and the film with the most nominations was Everything Everywhere All at Once with 11 nominations including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress (x2) and Best Supporting Actor. I know I’m banging a bit of a drum on this subject, but why on earth can’t…
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Ken Bruce
For some, the news that Ken Bruce is leaving Radio 2 is akin to the ravens leaving the Tower of London. He’s been on the mid-morning show pretty much non-stop since 1986 – a time when the Radio 2 schedule started with Derek Jameson at breakfast, and following Ken came Jimmy Young, David Jacobs, Gloria…
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Book Pricing
I should state up front that I have no interest in reading Spare the new book from Prince Harry which has perturbed much of the UK press so much for the last few weeks, alongside the Netflix series he’s made with his wife. I hold no candle for the Royal Family. However, if Harry and…
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Streaming Things
EBU/Warner Bros. Discovery’s Olympic Deal The IOC has just announced that a joint European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) bid has been successful for the next few Olympic cycles, from the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan through until the 2032 Summer Games in Brisbane. In the UK, that means that BBC will…
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TV – Good, Bad and Meh
We’re only two episodes in, but the third and final series of Happy Valley is just wonderful. The lines that writer/director Sally Wainwright gives to her Sergeant Catherine Cawood are just delicious. And yet it’s all so natural. I am glued to this on Sunday nights. When Reservation Dogs came to Disney+ back in 2021,…
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Rain, Wind and a Tyre Blowout
Saturday’s ride was always going to be a little interesting. The weather wasn’t great, with rain falling fairly constantly early on. I prevaricated a bit, but decided to do 100km or so circuit around Hertfordshire. So fully layered up in Gore-tex and waterproof shoe covers (which never stay fully waterproofed), I headed out. All was…
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A New Year’s Day Ride to Cambridge
Starting the year as I mean to go on, I rode to Cambridge on New Year’s Day, taking a slightly circuitous route to stretch it out to 100km. A quick ride through the city centre before heading back to the station for the return leg by train.
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Absolute Radio and the End of AM
Radio Today is reporting that Absolute Radio is set to come off its AM frequencies later this month. The station, which first launched as Virgin Radio, has been broadcasting since April 1993 on 1215, 1197 and other adjacent frequencies . It was licenced as one of the three “INR” stations – Independent National Radio stations…
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Why Cancel So Fast?
The other day, Netflix cancelled its strange SF show 1899 which came from the producers of the similarly weird German show on the platform, Dark. Netflix uses a whole load of metrics to determine which shows get renewed and which get cancelled, and with increased financial pressure on the platform these days, it feels like…
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Mostly, But Not Entirely, Icelandic Christmas Reading
Around this time of year I always have good intentions to write more about the books I read. I’ve got a note somewhere of a long list of titles that I read last year, but remain unblogged. I’ll try to get back to that list at some point. But over the Christmas/New Year period, I…
Podcasts, Radio, TV, Books, Cycling, Photography and More
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Yellowface/All The Lovers In The Night
Yellowface by R F Kuang I first came across R F Kuang with last year’s very enjoyable Babel, an alternate history of the British Empire told in a world where magic exists and is controlled by an elite group of individuals. Yellowface is very different, but no less enjoyable. It’s a book about books, and…
Hadrian’s Wall
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