Month: September 2008
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Setanta Broadcasts Free-To-Air Highlights Itself!
According to Media Guardian, Setanta is broadcasting free-to-air highlights of Croatia v England later this evening on its own channel! This is very odd. They’re reported to have turned down an offer of £500,000 from ITV. And now, at the very last minute, they offer these free highlights. The story on Media Guardian was published…
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Why Do We Need Celebrities?
OK – it’s a well known fact to people who read this blog or sit near me at work that I hate all reality shows. That said, there are a couple I watch despite myself. The Apprentice is getting close to boring me as they choose a nice cross section of generally inept people, but…
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Radio Stuff And Nonsense
It’s all getting very lively over at my “other place“. Radio 3 has some interesting new drama coming this autumn. Of course, it’s always easier to think “I must listen to that three adaptation of the Duchess of Malfi,” than actually sit down and listen to it. Radio 4’s new season sounds intriguing. I’m less…
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Paralympics
Here’s a stat for you: Number of hours of coverage of the Beijing Olympics on US television: 3,600 (2,900 of which was live) Number of hours of coverage of the Beijing Paralympics on US television: 1.5 (0 of which is live) That’s right. Of all the US TV channels, there is a single 90 minute…
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Scary Thought About Setanta Football Issue
As the Setanta issue rumbles on with no terrestrial highlights likely to be available for a terrestrial service for the Croatia away game for England on Wednesday, I’ve just had a scary thought. Essentially Setanta purchased both live coverage and highlights of the fixture. But they’ve declined to sell on those highlight rights. The radio…
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Tesco Lose Appeal In Sheringham
Congratulations to all in Sheringham today, after Tesco finally lost an appeal to build a massive supermarket in the small Norfolk town of Sheringham. If you’ve never visited Sheringham then perhaps you won’t understand quite what this means. You probably live somewhere where most of the small independent shops, from bakers and greengrocers to butchers…
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4.7bn Watched The Olympics?
Neilsen Media Research – a fine media research company who I have contracts with via my employer – has released details of a story suggesting that 4.7bn people watched at least some of the Olympic coverage last month. That’s out of a rough estimate of 6.6bn for the planet’s population. I’m always deeply suspicious of…
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Musical Tastes and Personality
A friend of mine pointed me towards this story based on some research that suggests that your musical tastes are linked to your personality. I think she took exception to the idea that “heavy metal fans are gentle.” Obviously, making broad genearlisations like that is nonsense, but I wanted to learn a little more about…
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Tour of Britain – Stage 1
The 2008 edition of the Tour of Britain kicked off today with a 10 lap circuit of London running down the Embankment from Big Ben to the Tower of London and back.
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Alcohol And The Media
There’s a widely reported story today about a report examining how alcohol is covered in the media. In particular the perceived glamourisation of excessive drinking by radio DJs such as Chris Moyles. You can read coverage at the BBC News site, and in all the papers (here are links to the story in The Guardian…
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Radio Pop
Radio Pop was something I first saw at last year’s Radio At The Edge conference. It describes itself as “social radio listening.” Once logged in (and it uses Open ID – which might be good if it was ever made clear to the broader public how it should be used), you start listening to a…
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Various Bits and Pieces
I’ve always liked DJ Andy Kershaw, so it’s tragic to read about his recent problems with both the law and his broken relationship in an interview in today’s Independent. I can’t say I’m exactly in tears at the news that Wippit has shut down. Just ask Danny Baker what he thinks about them. Albion has…