Month: March 2007

  • Fight Fight Fight

    Sillyness at work this morning…

  • David Lynch on Product Placement

    He’s not a massive fan (NSFW language): Via Waxy links.

  • D2 Bids Are In

    Bids went in yesterday for the second national commercial multiplex. There are two bidders – Channel 4 and National Grid Wireless. Channel 4 we know about – James has all the details. National Grid Wireless (NGW) are one of the two radio transmission comapnies in the UK (the other is Arqiva), and the big story…

  • Miscellaneous Thoughts

    I don’t quite know why, but I’m really pleased that the House of Lords chucked out Tessa Jowell’s super-casino last night. In the meantime, am I the only person who thinks that the new Ministry of Justice sounds like a cross between something you’d find in 1984 and Judge Dredd? I found myself not watching…

  • Man on Train

    I’m sitting opposite a man. He’s probably in his early forties, and he’s one of those commuters who carries no briefcase; no rucksuck; no bag of any kind. He doesn’t read a book, or a free evening newspaper. He just toys with his mobile, sending and reading text messages. His suit screams cheap, and his…

  • Music Industry in Decline

    A couple of really interesting stories to come out of America recently regarding the state of the music industry. First up was the report that in the US, CD sales dropped by 20% in the last year. That’s an awful lot. In real money, it’s a decline from 112 million CDs to 89 millions. A…

  • 300

    So this weekend it was all things Spartan, and in particular the Battle of Thermopylae. Frank Miller, that doyen of graphic novels, wrote a five-parter called 300 some while back, and this morning, before seeing the newly released film, I read it. It’s a fictionalised telling of King Leonidas leading his 300 Spartan troops into…

  • Going Digital

    BBC Radio Five Live is running a campaign to persuade us to go digital at the moment. It’s awful and condescending. Have a listen yourself. powered by ODEO I listen to a lot of Five Live outside work, and I’m certainly in the digital community with DAB, broadband, Freeview and Sky as ways of listening…

  • Stardust Trailer

    The other day, before my screening of Blades of Glory, we also saw the trailer to the forthcoming Stardust – based on the Neil Gaiman novel (Admission: I’ve not read this book… yet). I hadn’t quite realised that this was something of an exclusive, but can say here and now that it looks stunning. I…

  • BBC Websites Update

    Following on from my recent rant, I noticed yesterday that the TV homepage is currently soliciting for some research. I dutifully filled out the survey, and at length went through some of my less than happy thoughts about. Now I’m not suggesting that you should skew their research in any way, but if you were…

  • Digital Evolution

    Reading the BBC’s response to Ofcom’s Digital Dividend Review (effectively determining what happens to all that bandwidth currently used by analogue TV once it’s switched off between 2008 and 2012), it’s notable that radio and television in this country are facing the same issues – encoding technology. Currently DAB uses MPEG-2 technology, as does Freeview.…

  • 118118 Sponsorship Ends

    The best news I’ve heard for ages is that 118118 is ending its Channel 4 drama sponsorship. While I understand the commercial realities of life, the 118118 sponsorship credits actually detract from what you’ve just seen. You come out of some tense piece of drama to see those two clowns making a mockery of it.…