Month: December 2015

  • A Comment-Free 2016

    There’s no two ways about it. Comments are broken. By that I mean, commenting systems on nearly any site that drives a large amount of traffic. There are too many trolls and people with little or nothing to add. There is way too much noise, and little to no signal. I used to enjoy comments.…

  • Boxing Day Sunrise

  • Boxing Day 2015 – Radio Times

    You’ve made it this far through. Hopefully Santa has been kind. But it looks like rain in good part of the country, so you may be thinking twice about that walk you were planning. Here are your viewing and listening choices through my ever-so-slightly myopic lens, courtesy of the Radio Times and some Post-Its. Here…

  • Christmas Day 2015 – Radio Times

    Happy Christmas all! You’ll no doubt be unwrapping presents, eating enormous quantities of food, having family arguments, and then perhaps sitting down and trying to decide what telly you should be watching. As ever, I’ve made my own suggestions to help you. You might even want to listen to the radio. Here’s the TV: (Click…

  • Christmas Eve 2015 – Radio Times

    You’re with friends and family. But what to watch or listen to? You know how I love to help out anyone who isn’t sure what’s worth your time. So here is my regular helpful guide to what to watch over the period, presented via the medium of an annotated Radio Times. (Click here to see…

  • Search Engines in Film

    In the Road Runner cartoons, Wily E Coyote often needed to buy various bits of equipment and products to try to stop said Road Runner. Invariably those anvils et al, were supplied by the Acme Corporation, a fictional company with a curious catalogue of products. It was always fun seeing what Acme was producing next.…

  • Virgin Media and the Premier League

    Judging from recent interviews across the media, Virgin Media CEO Tom Mockridge is out and about shouting loudly about his company’s complaint about how the Premier League sells its UK TV rights. His complaint is broadly that the league only sells 168 of the 360 fixtures each season, artificially limiting supply to keep prices high.…

  • The Tow Center Guide to Podcasting

    There’s a terrific new report that the Tow Center for Digital Journalism – an institute within the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. It has published called A Guide to Podcasting. It’s an unashemedly US-centric view of the podcasting market in 2015, detailing the history of the medium, and presenting a series of case studies…

  • Why Doesn’t Audio Go Viral?

    I’m a regular reader of Nick Quah’s Hot Pod newsletter on Podcasts. It’s worth subscribing to if you’re interested in the medium, even if there are slightly too many animated GIFs in the emails! A few weeks ago, Nick addressed something that goes back to a Digg piece from well over a year ago. As…

  • Amazon Prime Music – Filling A Hole

    Back over the summer, Amazon launched its Prime Music offering in the UK. Anybody who pays Amazon £79 a year, for it’s free next day delivery service, and video streaming service, now also has access to more than a million tracks and hundreds of playlists to stream via the web, Fire TV or a mobile…

  • The Sleigh List

    In the last couple of days I’ve read a couple of pieces on when is the right time to start playing Christmas music on the radio. David Lloyd has updated a blog he wrote a couple of years ago, including some research Orion Media conducted on this very matter, alongside various other pieces of research…