Month: October 2007
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Audience Figures
The press is always talking about TV audience figures, and commonly fails to understand them at all. I’ve often railed against the ludicrous claims perpetuated around the football World Cup or the Olympics, so it was quite interesting to see this story from earlier in the year. But let’s get a little more current. There’s…
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Tommy Walsh
Can I just point you towards Tommy “Ground Force” Walsh’s My Media is today’s Media Guardian (Free registration required). A couple of choice excerpts: Normally … I get my local paper, the Hackney Gazette, because I like to know what’s going on, and on a Sunday the Sunday Express, which my wife likes. … I…
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Dave
Another day, another “new” TV channel. UK TV has decided to rename the stupidly named UK TV G2 as the even more stupidly named Dave. UK TV has never exactly inspired a great deal of confidence in me regarding its branding. For years, there was simply a channel named UK Gold with a basic premise…
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Paul Merson
Idly flicking through the free local paper, I came across this ad: It’s for a new betting shop that’s just opened locally. Obviously that’s exactly what we need more of. But much more than that was one of the celebrity attendees to the opening. Paul Merson! He was a wonderful footballer who played for Arsenal…
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The Wit and Wisdom of Sepp Blatter
11 July 2000 – Blatter backs World Cup rotation plan 12 October 2007 – Sepp Blatter … wants to ditch Fifa’s controversial [rotation] selection policy Yes – Sepp Blatter, the man who runs FIFA as his own personal fiefdom (sorry), has had something of a volte face and now wants to scrap the rotation system…
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Cowboy Junkies and The Trinity Session
This evening, for the second time this year, it was off to see the Cowboy Junkies. This time, it was at the Royal Albert Hall, and like some of my fellow concert goers, I was at first worried about the paltry turnout. As it happened, by the time the Cowboy Junkies took to the stage,…
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Ranting Middle Aged Men
Why is it that so many crap ranting books are being published? It’s very disturbing to see them cluttering up the floors of Borders and Waterstones in the run-up to Christmas. And most of them seem to have been penned by Talksport DJs. If I was at that station and didn’t have a Christmas book…
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In Rainbows
Well that worked surprisingly well. Following the announcement last week that Radiohead was releasing its new album today, I went ahead and bought it, paying a reasonable £5 (+45p service charge), rather than the boastful 0.01p that so many people seem to be paying. Mind you, I’d suggest that a good number of them wouldn’t…
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American Gangster
Ridley Scott is back with a new film which stars Russell Crowe. Now, those with long memories may recall that these two have made films before. First there was the enormously successful, and very good, Gladiator. And then there was A Good Year. That’s 90 minutes of my life I won’t get back. Well this…
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Strictly Come Dancing Results Recorded and not Live
Here’s a question… Is the Strictly Come Dancing results show live? Well here’s the answer. No. It’s recorded on Saturday night. Previously, Strictly Come Dancing has been an all Saturday affair. After the main programme, viewers were invited to vote while they watched the National Lottery show. Then the programme returned for the results. All…
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Replace ITV’s Ads With Your Own
ITV paid £40m for the rights to the 2003 and 2007 Rugby World Cups. So they must be really happy when a certain Antipodean themed pub-chain replaces ITV’s ads for its own – cutting into the ad break to run them, before returning to ITV programming. While Sky Sports undoubtedly has a contract with pubs…
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Sloooooow Gameshows
I saw about ten minutes of Sky One’s much trumpeted new gameshow “Are You Smarter Than A Ten Year Old” at the weekend. Based, on a format from Fox in the US, it asks contestants questions aimed at children aged 10 and under. I gave up watching because of that malaise of all recent quiz…