Month: May 2008
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Future of Public Service Broadcasting
With Ofcom’s review underway, and with the usual calls for the BBC’s cash to be spread a bit thinner, with “top-slicing” and the like, commentators are often keen for the UK to adopt a model similar to public television in the US. There, cash is raised by subscribers pledging money directly. Relatively little state and…
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The Mysteries of Scheduling
It’s obviously too complicated a story for me to comprehend, but some recent scheduling decisions really don’t make a great deal of sense to me. First of all there’s Saturday nights. No, I’m not talking about Pushing Daisies on ITV1, although that really did make no sense. I’m more interested in the general start and…
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Orange LiveRadio
Orange has announced its LiveRadio – effectively an Orange branded Wi-Fi radio. You pair it up with your wireless router and away you go listening to internet radio from around the globe. So far, so normal. You can buy a cheaper device elsewhere. But the Orange LiveRadio does allow you to purchase music from the…
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It Tests Well
“But here, research is still king and the audience is apparently saying it wants lots of familiar oldies, especially from the 1980s, and – at the time of writing – Rockstar by Nickleback more or less on the hour every hour.”
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Ladies of the World
Must go out and get the new Flight of the Conchords album.
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Chinese Earthquake and the Media
Last night I was flicking around the outer reaches of Sky, and came upon CCTV just as the top of the hour was approaching. So I decided to see how the awful Chinese earthquake was being reported in south western China on the English language version of the Chinese state TV service. Well of course…
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What Does Commercial Radio Have To Do?
I’ll once again preface this piece by saying that these are my personal views and don’t represent those of my employer. I wrote a week or so ago about the poor showing of commercial radio compared to BBC radio in the recent RAJAR results for Q1 2008. What we saw was commercial radio fall to…
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Madge in Kent – What A Hoo-Haa
Here’s a complete non-story: Madonna swore twice during her post watershed performance that was broadcast live on BBC Three and Radio 1 as part of the station’s Big Weekend in Maidstone. So there were swear words in programme that featured a warning, and viewers got an apology anyway. Anyway, she’s edging 50, and has to…
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Some Good Radio
Taking advantage of the fine weather, I hit the nearby countryside this afternoon (sadly, in a moment of poor planning, sans camera) and found myself following a section of the London Loop. I must say that I think I may attempt the full walk over the course of the next few months – it’s always…
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Ed Reardon’s Week Finally Coming To CD
Well here’s a turn-up for the books – the first series of Ed Reardon’s Week looks as though it’s finally coming out on CD. You can put your cash back in your wallet, as it’s not due to hit become available until September if the listings on Amazon or the BBC Shop are anything to…
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Freesat Launches
[Now updated a bit] Are we all excited by Freesat which launches today? Actually it’s a good time for it to come onstream. OK, so the website (as linked to by the BBC Press Office) doesn’t work, but it can’t all be smooth. Onboard from day one are all the BBC channels, all the ITV…
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Moyles v Wogan
Lots of today’s RAJAR press coverage focuses on the “battle” between Radio 1’s Chris Moyles (34) and Radio 2’s Terry Wogan (69). There are charts like the one below, a version of which appeared in today’s Times. It all looks pretty close between the two breakfast DJs. But is that chart completely fair? Chris Moyles…