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Category: Media

  • Newspapers and Tablets

    The majority of the UK press has been vehemently reacting against the recommendations last week of the Leveson report, and in particular reject any kind of government legislation of their industry in spite of the systematic abuse that many titles have treated members of the public. But as they do that, one wonders – with…

  • Advertising Sometimes Eats Itself

    Watching the football this evening, some of the advertising on the pitchside hoarding really made me wonder what on earth the advertising industry is sometimes up to. Let’s be clear. I essentially work in the advertising industry. I work at a commercial radio station, and it’s through advertising – in various forms – that I…

  • Newspapers Need To Help Themselves

    I do something that’s becoming increasingly unusual in the 21st century. I buy a daily newspaper. Specifically, I have subscription vouchers for The Guardian and Observer. But I think it’s fair to say that everyone realises the days of printed daily papers are numbered. I don’t think it’ll happen that soon. It might be ten…

  • Disappointing Tone in Discussion on Libya Reporting

    I like Steve Hewlett on Radio 4’s Media Show, but I’ve just been catching up with this week’s edition and was really unhappy with the centrepiece discussion about Sky News v BBC News last weekend as the rebels (if that’s what we’re calling them) entered Green Square. Make no mistake, Sky News undoubtedly scooped BBC…

  • Why Local Television Plans Are Doomed

    Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, has just released details on the latest part of his plan to start very local television services in the UK. I talked a little about this earlier in the year. Allow me to expand a little more. As you may or may not be aware, local TV is something of…

  • It’s Not Rioting – It’s Looting

    I’ve been a bit disappointed in the coverage we’ve had so far about the events of Sunday evening. What became very clear from following reports on news media and the internet is that this was organised criminality. I was returning to Enfield Town station from a lovely day out cycling when I saw reports of…

  • Satire and Parliament

    Over the last few days, there’s been a bit of a Twitter-ruckus (is that a word?) about the lack of More 4’s Global Edition of The Daily Show this week. Graham Linehan has full details (and this New Statesman piece essentially regurgitates Linehan), but essentially the episode had to be pulled because the main item…

  • Following Le Tour

    No. Sadly, I don’t mean spending large parts of July in a camper van driving between the Pyrenees and the Alps, joining the multi-national throngs clinging to the mountainsides. I mean following the Tour, on-air and online. Assuming that you’re not “available to view” during the daytime on weekdays, your first decision is whether to…

  • Phone-Hacking Media Talk

    Last night I spent a fascinating hour at a “live” recording of The Guardian’s Media Talk podcast, presented by Matt Wells, in a packed room with somewhere around 100 Guardian readers in attendance. It was devoted completely to the hacking scandal, and featured some of the key players in the case including Nick Davies, the…

  • Why I’m Not Going To The Cinemas As Much As I Once Did

    Cinema has always been a media that has felt under threat. Radio, television, video, DVD, BluRay, video games and so on, have all at one time or another been listed as being a reason that the medium is going to fail. And it’s true that it has adapted – or had to adapt – over…

  • New BBC News Blogs – A Retrograde Update

    BBC News is seemingly completing its movement of correspondents’ blogs across to the a new system. And frankly, they’ve made some significantly retrograde steps. I’d happily acknowledge that previously the blogs were somewhat hidden, and lots of website readers were probably missing out. And I know that this has meant a shift in the backend…

  • Sky’s Ratings

    Since it’s buried away a little on Sky’s website, it’s worth pointing those interested in TV ratings towards a piece that Sky One’s Stuart Murphy has written about ratings for his shows. He illustrates the breakdown of viewership of an episode of the recent Mad Dogs (“Brilliantly disgraceful” wouldn’t be my description. “Perfectly entertaining, if…