In the 80s

It must be 80s week TV week (kind of), but for different and diverse reasons. First there was the return of the truly awful 'Gladiators' snapped up by Sky One (for the love of god why?) and the sad demise of everyone's (ahem) favourite TV prankster Jeremy Beadle. There must be more on the way.

Well everyone seems to love him now though let's not forget he was once the most hated man in Britain. I'm sure some of today's articles will mention YouTube and how he was the forerunner of all that kind of stuff. Fair play, I mean he did more for charity than most, which has to be worth a little pain. Oh wait…

I knew as soon as I stepped out of bed today what the Sun's front page headline would be and sure enough there it is: 'Beadle's Not about'. Possibly in poor taste. Who knows maybe the prankster ('Beadle's About') and purveyor of quality clips of children and animals falling over (You've Been Framed') would have appreciated it.

Beadle's show were well-watched, but it was cheap Saturday night television that ITV turned out year in and year out and later succeeded by the likes of Ant and Dec who are probably the spiritual keepers of the Beadle flame with their 'Saturday Night Takeaway'.

His departure comes as Sky One resurrects 80s/90s game show 'Gladiators'. A brash splash of primary colours as people hit each other with padded sticks.  

Sky doesn't make many programmes which is why it sent a press release about this to me six times yesterday.

In the US the writers strike has led broadcasters to put more reality shows onto the schedules - Sky doesn't have that excuse.

All we need now is the return of 'Blind Date', that other staple of the 80s. I'm not sure if this collection of shows all ran at the same time, but they are indelibly linked in some cheesy TV yesteryear which if you tried to explain to someone from another planet they probably wouldn’t believe you (yes we have human Zoos as well and we feed the inmates/inhabitants alcohol and laugh or not).

I'm betting ("hello is that Mr Paddy Power?") that 'Blind Date will be back any moment. Yesterday, ITV signed himbo-in-chief Vernon Kaye in an "exclusive two year deal". The good news is that Kaye (former host of another 80s revival 'Family Fortunes') won't appear on other channels. The bad news is that he will be hosting new shows that will probably involve the word "talent", but I'm sure will include 'Blind Date".

And if not that then a show called 'Blind Talent' or is that already airing? I'm confused. Maybe I'm being harsh - his first show will in fact be called 'Beat The Star', which I'm sure will be pure quality.

There must be other shows that can be shamelessly dug up from those dungeons deep in TV's vaults? Any suggestions?

iPhone hang-ups as Google and Dell plot

As the iPhone's expensive UK tariffs are overhauled, it turns out that a quarter of Apple's phones in the US have been "unlocked" to work on other networks. You can bet Google/Dell will not be borrowing heavily from the Apple playbook when they launch their own rumoured mobile.

I'm not fan of Apple, but I have had a little look at a few and they are pretty cool. I admit some envy, when comparing them to my clunky (soon to be replace Blackberry). The other week even the builder was showing me some work he had done on his iPhone. He thumb surfed with ease. I didn't ask him if he was on O2, although I should have done.

The problem is not so big in the UK as in the US where a report yesterday said that more than a quarter of iPhones sold in the US (or one million plus) have been "unlocked" to work on network providers other than Apple's "exclusive" partner AT&T.

People have done it in the UK as well and for good reason. If you really want the phone, it is quite wrong to be forced to change network. Consumers have sent Apple a message, but Steve Jobs has never struck me as the kind of guy who listens. Apple is more about basking in the glory of its achievments (which - to be fair - are many in recent years) than engaging in customer dialogue.

Apple, of course, pursued its one mobile phone operator per country for a good reason. Healthy profits. It gets a slice of the airtime charges unlike other mobile phone manufacturers who do not. It must have sounded like a genius idea at the time of conception. I thinking it sounds less genius like now.

A study done by Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi says that if Apple sells 10m iPhones in the US by the end of 2008, 30% of them will have been unlocked, which will cost $500m (£251m) in revenues.

That news came as O2 overhauls the cost of using Apple's iPhone after just two months from the time it went on sale.

The mobile network will improve the package of its not insignificant lower rate £35 and £45 per month tariff, giving these customers substantially better deals and at the same time introducing a new "super-tier" contract costing £75 per month. Sign me up. No wait.

This comes after last week's news that sales of Apple's iPhone in the UK have fallen short of expectations. O2 sold a reported 10,000 fewer handsets than expected ,with around 190,000 iPhone handsets shifted in the UK in the two months beginning November 9.

The low figure comes despite a massive on- and offline press campaign and much press coverage aimed at enticing consumers to sign up to the product's 18-month contract, at a cost of £899, which is simply incomparable with anything else on offer in the market.

It is thought that sales could also have been hit by recent reports that Apple could soon be offering a new iPhone with twice the memory, but for the same price as the original phone.

The iPhone currently has just 8Gb of memory, meaning it can store up to 2,000 songs. However, reports last week said that Apple could soon be releasing phones with 16Gb or even 32Gb of memory.

There are, as you can see, one or two kinks in the marketing and sales strategy of the iPhone that has put a lot of people off.

There could soon be more to contend with as reports continue to circulate that Google and Dell are plotting their own launch. Plans could be out as early as next month's 3GSM conference in Barcelona.

It could give us the much speculated about GPhone. Sounds as cool as an iPhone without all the restrictive baggage that comes with Apple products. You only have to look at its new slimline Mac Air Book -- as someone on our forums pointed out: " You might get a USB 2.0 socket, a micro-DVI socket, a headphones jack and iSight webcam, but there is no optical drive, no FireWire port, no VGA, no DVI, no Ethernet socket, no chance of expanding the RAM memory or the hard drive and strangest of all no replaceable battery".

Google late last year announced its mobile operating systems Android and there was no paranoia. It was open systems. I'm definitely happy to wait.

From McJob to McAlevels

This is a tough one. My natural instinct is to slate McDonald's every time, without fail, and mostly with good reason, but I find myself slightly torn today reading the news that the burger giant is offering workplace education. It's not a bad idea.
According to all the press reports today the government has given the go ahead for McDonald's to offer accredited in-company qualifications, the equivalent of an A-level.

It's not going to get you into Oxford (although it might get you into somewhere), but the course will train staff in everything they need to run a McDonald's outlet, from marketing to human resources and customer service skills. It is far better that staff in any organisation are given the chance to train and thus improve their skills than not.

That McDonald's is one of the very first to embrace this scheme, alongside Network Rail and airline Flybe, seems almost revelatory. I say almost as we have yet to see quite how this experiment fares, but putting that aside for a moment the move marks a bid by the company to shake over its McJob image -- to shake off the fact that it (and to be fair, as it’s that kind of day, the industry that it is part of) is the epitome until now of what McJob stands for and offers its employees -- low-paying, low-prestige jobs that require few skills and offers very little chance of intercompany advancement.

Now it is offering training that the company hopes will lead to qualifications equal to good GCSEs and up to university degrees. It's backed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and it has new deal written all over it. Brown says it will be tough and I hope it will.

If it lives up to the promise that it represents, which is one of social innovation and advancement that is necessary for any leading industrial society to equip its citizens for the future.

A spokesman for the university admission system Ucas said that employer-led qualifications could prove a valuable route into higher education and pointed to the diploma in fashion retail, which is already part of the Ucas tariff.

This initiative is part of an image makeover writ for McDonald's that has this last year had a transformational affect on the image of the business.

There is a big piece in the Guardian today on this. Picking up on the visual retreat of the golden arches and the emergence of "a khaki green cafe restaurant" with Rainforest Alliance certified freshly ground coffee, British organic milk and free-range eggs that are delivered by a lorry powered by biodiesel from recycled cooking oil. And free wi-fi. And couches: a bucket of freshly ground coffee, internet access and a couch? I'd consider going in. That is a big move.

This has led to financial results for 2007 that are expected to be excellent around the globe and, in Britain better still with the chain selling more burgers than at any time since it arrived in Britain 34 years ago.

Part of it is a back to basics, but it is also improving those basics, raising the bar if you will. It certainly needed to. One of the reasons that many would not cross its bright plastic glaring light threshold is because the environment itself was so very alien: like a play word for oversized Lego people.

By the end of last year, 140 outlets had been "reimaged". This year, another 200 will be given what McDonald's calls the "less is more" treatment.

A lot of the UK change is credited to Steve Easterbrook who became chief executive of McDonald's UK in April 2006.

"The business did stall at a time when the society around us was changing as fast as it has ever done," he says. "We had begun to look tired. We hadn't read all the signals that had been sent to us, that to do business in 2007, or more importantly in 2010 and 2020, you've got to act in a different way; you've got to be more approachable."

Read more in the Guardian.

WSJ.com and Metro International

Two things in my in box this morning and they seem to be related. Rupert Murdoch has decided to keep the subscription model to The Wall Street Journal Online in place and Metro International is possibly putting up the for sale sign in the US.

Newspapers are already struggling to win advertising in the face of digital competition and what once seemed like an unstoppable revolution... is now shaking on the tracks.

Metro International, as our story reports, is making some high-profile redundancies at its flagship US papers, Metro New York and Metro Boston, and could possibly sell them on to joint venture partner the New York Times Co.

The sale follows a strategic review of its short and long-term agenda in October after disappointing third-quarter results, with a loss of $18.2m (£8.9m), more than double that of last year, as margins fell across Europe and the US.

None of this is to say that the freesheet market's days are numbered, but it is certainly facing challenging conditions that will only gets worse as the advertising market starts to feel the pinch of recession.

That won't even happen this year according to WPP Group chief executive, Sir Martin Sorrell, who said earlier this week that it is 2009 we have to worry about after the quadrennial bonus (Olympics, US Presidential elections, European Football Championships) are firmly in our review mirror.

The bumps in the road for the freesheet market international have not yet hit the UK, where there is still much talk of expansion even as News International's thelondonpaper and Associated Newspaper's London Lite battle it out.

There is talk of a national newspaper entering the fray. Or at least there has been for the last few weeks. My prediction is that this will not happen. Not this year and not next.

That is not to say that in the more niche freesheet magazine market where Mike Soutar's Shortlist and Sport have cut a swathe there is not room for more players.

And so to the Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal. There was much excitable media talk when he was buying Dow Jones with the media mogul giving every indication that the subscription days of WSJ.com were over. The Financial Times panicked and dropped access (if to a very limited degree).

It did seem that the last bastion of content subscription charges would be banished. The last vestige of the early days of the web, of content is king, but as Murdoch's finger hovered it seems that he had a change of heart.

Maybe it was the numbers that came out after he had made his initial comments about dumping subscription charges that revealed that the WSJ.com has just signed its one millionth subscriber. I'm sure it was partly that and I'm sure also it was partly the storm clouds gathering over the global economy and over the advertising forecasts.

In such stormy conditions, it suddenly makes no sense to dump a 1m strong source of revenue when opening your site up might not bring in as strong as expected advertising revenues.

Just two weeks ago, the latest Bellwether Report said that growth in internet adspend appears to be falling off, with the smallest upward revision to online marketing budgets since the autumn of 2003.

'Quantum of Solace'? Worst title ever?

Is this the worst film title in the history of the world ever? Someone please hire some movie brand consultants so they can explain just how bad the title for the new James Bond movie is.

You can't go from 'Casino Royale' to 'Quantum of Solace' it sounds like the sequel to Stanislaw Lem's 'Solaris'.

Apparently the title is taken from one of a collection of short stories published by Ian Fleming in 1960, but that doesn't make it right.

I'm sure it will (on the evidence of 'Casio Royale') be very good. Daniel Craig is already shaping up to be a very good Bond. Producer Michael Wilson is promising "twice as much action" for what is Bond 22, in which Bond goes looking for revenge.

Craig does a very good job of trying to explain the title. Apparently it has something to do with Bond entering a Buddhist monastery where there is much solace, as you would expect.

According to Craig: "Ian Fleming had written about relationships. When they go wrong, when there's nothing left, when the spark has gone, when the fire's gone out, there's no quantum of solace. And at the end of the last movie, Bond had the love of his life taken away from him and he never got that quantum of solace."

"So he's looking for revenge, you know, to make himself happy with the world again. But the title also alludes to something else in the film," he added.

Okay, so there's no mention of Buddhists or monasteries just yet, but really there should be.

The good news is that with the naming of the latest Bond movie. George Lucas is no longer the worst in the world at coming up with film titles. The 'Quantum of Solace' makes the 'Phantom Menace' look like a work of genius. Okay, well not genius, but for a film about trade embargoes better than he has any right to expect.

Could Google buy The New York Times?

It seems like wild speculation, but could it happen? Could Google buy The New York Times?
It sounds strange, but think back to those heady days of the first dotcom boom in 2000 when one-time internet behemoth AOL bought old-media giant Time Warner.

That deal went with the dotcom crash as power shifted. The focus of internet power has since moved and it sits with different kind of companies, with Google sitting proudly at the top.

The question is raised today by investment site Real Clear Markets. It points out the fact that in the last five years, The New York Times has declined in value by an astonishing 70% and rightly points out that as a newspaper it is likely to get worse.

The New York Times is not the only paper that has this problem, they all do to a lesser or greater degree, but with a recession, big or large, on the way advertising will be hit hard, as it always is, and as a knock-on result newsprint will suffer.

According to the post on Real Clear, at some point in the near future the market capitalisation of The New York Times will fall below $2bn and, at that point, the company will be in play.

Google always says that it is not about content, but does anyone really believe it any more?

The piece argues that should Google has most to gain from buying The New York Times and if it offered a Rupert Murdoch Wall Street Journal-like, no-auction bid of $4bn it would seal the deal with the paper's family owners (the Sulzbergers) having no option but to accept because other shareholders would snap it as they will never get another opportunity as good as that one.

If such a deal is not taken (and while not certain), it appears the future for The New York Times Company could be one of a steadily declining stock price.

The future for the New York Times is about to get even more competitive than it already is, as the aforementioned Murdoch takes control of the Wall Street Journal, the great rival of the Times, and Murdoch has that rival in his gun-metal sights.

Its argued that the Sulzbergers would never sell because they see Tthe New York Times as an institution. There is nothing that quite comes close in the UK, (The Guardian maybe, but it is not a family business in the way that the NY Times, the Washington Post and the WSJ were) and nothing that quite emanates the feeling of journalistic integrity (you could never imagine it going tabloid/Berliner) and seriousness.

And in that vein the family would utter "an over my dead body" before parting company with it, but as Murdoch has proved time and time again he has the pockets that other people simply do not have and they are deep and certainly much deeper than those belonging to The New York Times Company, which would need to do something very radical lest they bleed to death like rivals have in the past.

The argument goes that if the Times can not afford the fight then it can no longer, on its own, maintain that journalistic flame of excellence, which brings us to Google. It could snap up one of the world's top media brands for relative small change. Why would it want it?

Well that's easy. It is a fantastic brand with fantastic content. It does have that flame and it would sit nicely with Google, which has its own (derided) brand of ethics that it thinks sets it apart from the rest of the pack.

Welcome to the WPP Group!

Spam is certainly getting personal. At Brand Republic we have this morning been welcomed into the WPP Group, but to be honest the pay isn't quite what we'd hoped.

While we are big fans of Sir Martin Sorrell at Brand Republic, I think this is one offer we will have to pass on.

Welcome to the WPP Group!
We are very glad that you wish to join our team, will be delighted to have you work with us The position of “Representative” provides support filling the transactions of our customers.
We deal exclusively with private clients,- that have special requirements for high speed of receiving funds for their business .
This way we can offer a new kind of financial and banking service to our clients - and we would like you to work as an “Representative”.(part-time job 2-3 hours a day except holidays) At first your work would be very basic, yet meticulous -you will make transfers for our clients to suit their needs. Our managers will assist you during the trial period and explain everything you will need to know.
We offer an extremely competitive graduated salary: for the first month you will receive up to $2500 for your work the next month your salary will be increased if you do your work accurately and on time.
Now you are only one step away from successful career.

All you need is to send an e-mail to: wppfinance1@gmail.com

with phone numbers and times to reach you, and one of our representatives will contact you and answer all your questions.

Thank you in advance,
Alice Mitchell
HR Manager
WPP Finance

Army recruitment/Ross Kemp

After the British Army seemed to be unfairly criticised for its recruitment techniques recently in an "independent" report (written by a Quaker), it is getting a timely boost from former 'East Ender' Ross Kemp whose Sky One documentary tonight has been heavily advertised on press, TV and on radio.

The ads portray life for British troops in Afghanistan as you would think it might be: very dangerous looking, but challenging and not without a degree of excitement as well, which is what these men train for.

Two weeks ago, British armed forces were criticised for their recruitment techniques in a report that said marketing materials glamorise warfare to children and fail to highlight the risks of military careers.

Anyone who picks up a newspaper or owns a television set can not fail to miss the risks. The war in Afghanistan and Iraq has proved deadly.

The report, 'Informed Choice? Armed Forces Recruitment Practice in the United Kingdom', was billed as independent, but was written by a former Quaker who is a pacifist. Let me get this straight, pacifist says that Army glamorises war. Oh go away - that isn't independent.

As one person posted on the story on Brand Republic got it right as well: "Is it being suggested that Britain is full of young people who are unaware that the British Army is currently involved in several conflicts, within which members of the Armed Forces are killed and injured on a regular basis?"

The work the army does in Afghanistan (which was also well covered in ITV's eight part series 'Commando'. which followed 50 recruits undergoing months of gruelling training to become Royal Marine Commandos) is dangerous, but it is very worth doing. I think you get that from the Publicis London British Army ads as well (which I thought were very good), and from the excellent Army website (a cursory glance at which takes offers no illusions with stories of soldiers killed in action).

The army has always been dangerous, but is about more than just that. I don't think I ever acquired the idea that "warfare is portrayed as game-like and enjoyable". We have 'Call of Duty: 4' for that.

Ross Kemp, love him or loathe him, has really put the time into this new series (he won a Bafta for his real-life gangs story for Sky One). He spent a year making 'Ross Kemp in Afghanistan' having first trained with the First Battalion the Royal Anglians, met soldiers and their families while still in England, and -- with Ministry of Defence approval -- was sent with them to Camp Bastion in Afghanistan's Helmand province.

"I knew how dangerous it was but the CO said we could film training -- and that if I was good enough, I could go out on deployment," Ross said. "And anyway, I don't think you can prepare for lying flat-faced in the field while someone tries to kill you; I don't think you can prepare for the consistent jeopardy of not knowing if the next bump is going to be your last bump."

The early reviews of the series show Ross is often in very real danger, but as the Telegraph puts it "what comes through most powerfully is the resourcefulness and humanity of the soldiers who are fighting".

I'm pretty sure they and everyone else has worked out that is dangerous, which is why the army largely enjoys so much support and rightly so.

Oh and while we're here, on things military, there is a thoroughly worth looking at military blog written by a former special forces soldier who has been embedded for longer than any other reporter or journalist -- although he is neither.

According to The New York Times, Yon has created a niche outlet that is better reported than most blogs, and more opinionated than most news reporting, with enough first-hand observation, clarity and scepticism to put many professional journalists to shame. He has also taken some brilliant pictures including this one that appeared on Time magazine's site and was later voted one of top images of the year by visitors.

"We saw the man lying face down, barefoot, in filthy, oily mud, human excrement all around him,” he wrote in 2005, describing the aftermath of a gun battle he had witnessed. "He had fallen in an open air toilet, where he lay, belly-shot. The man brought his hand to his head, and touched his forehead with his index finger, pointing right between his eyes. 'Shoot me, shoot me,' he said. 'I want to die.'"

Ross Kemp in Afghanistan starts on Sky One tonight at 9.00pm.

For men who screw, bang and drill

Some poor English teacher has found herself suspended after once appearing in porn-alike-ad for a British work wear brand called Scruffs, which rather has to be seen to believed.

The blonde teacher stars (along with two other model/actresses) in a highly provocative video ad now available on YouTube simulating sex with a model looking builder to publicise Scruffs hard wearing boots and clothes.

Sadly for her the campaign dates back to 2004 and was produced not in house as you might have thought, but by CheethamBell JWT, Brilliant Manchester and Brazen who worked on the campaign (press and video).

The teacher, Sarah Green, concerned was working at the private Stockport Grammar school and made the film before becoming a teacher. The head is investigating and parents have called for her to be sacked.

You would think it was a spoof, if it were not for the press ads that Scruffs also features on its site, which play on double entendres, and the fact that Chris Dollman, marketing manager of Scruffs Workwear has said it is official.

"We used her services to promote our product - it was a tongue-in-cheek thing. She did something for us - it was her job - she was an actress and a model at the time. Now it has come back to haunt her, and it’s very unfortunate. It's not as though it's hard porn," Dollman said.

The video on YouTube has been watched more than 60,000 times (ten thousands times today already) and has several hundred comments some of which claim to be from children at the school in the North West including someone called willbindley: "She got suspended for it (thats what i heard) and 3R wrote Scruffs all over her board but she said she did it for the money !!!"

Another, from SassySarahSox, said: "OMG i didn't think it was goin 2 be that bad lol! Miss Green haha.ming Shes such a slut lol! yeh i think she did get suspended but im not sure!"

Apparently, the campaign was very successful at the time pushing out thousands of DVDs and doubling sales, but is that the point? Now the brand will enjoy a second round of publicity at the expense of the hapless teacher.

I wonder if this is on the agency's showreel?

Ashes to Ashes: Is DCI Gene Hunt ready for the 80s

The first previews of the sequel to the mind-bending police drama 'Life on Mars' are in and they are mixed, which is not wholly unexpected. As one reviewer put it: can you parody parody?

'Life on Mars' was gripping, fresh and smart and what (to my mind) made it so successful was the sum of its parts: a man out of time; brash brutal 'Sweeney' style 70s cops; and then the mystery of how Sam Tyler (John Simms) found himself swapping the a/c offices of the zeros for the fag and booze of 30 years ago.

As the BBC prepares to air the Kudos-made sequel 'Ashes to Ashes' next month, we will again be thrown back in time, but this time around the 'Spooks' Keeley Hawes's character (who wakes to the sound of Ultravox - I can already feel the pain) knows it is a delusion (she knew Sam) and knows he is no longer around and so removing one of the central conceits of the show: the one that kept us guessing. Was it a bang on the head? Was it time travel? Or did he just dream of the future?

There were others, but in the end the writers plumped for the most obvious and, to be fair, realistic option, taking a route that did not head them towards science fiction. Their explanation was the simple bang on the head, ending as it did with John Simm inexplicably jumping to his death and returning back to the 70s.

As The Times puts it "The maxim 'never go back' was advice ignored by Detective Chief Inspector Sam Tyler in the final episode of Life on Mars" and it leaves us with much that is secondhand and disappointment in a two star review.

While it appears first time around it was played for drama and parody, now we are in the realm of overkill.

"When Hunt, played as gleefully as ever by Philip Glenister, shouts an insult as lame as 'hoity-toity poofter' you wonder if the writers should have thought again. Old conceits are reworked. A sinister clown (is there any other type?) stands in for the test-card girl of Mars."

First time around the shootouts were all for real, but The Times says that in 'Ashes to Ashes' it is no longer taken seriously.

"Shoot-outs are played for laughs. The direction sends up Clint Eastwood. The knowingness may be form reflecting content (remember Eighties 'irony'?) but Mars was itself a parody of The Sweeney. And it’s hard to parody a parody."

That said, the Sun TV reviewer liked what she saw a lot more and was not disappointed by the return of DCI Gene Hunt and highlights the treats we have in store as Hawes tells Hunt: "I invented this world" and Hunt hisses back: "I invented the bruise-free groin punch!"

"I was hoping Ashes would live up to the hype -- and believe me it does, with Philip Glenister, as Hunt, at his absolute best. Crack open a bottle of Asti Spumanti and enjoy when it airs on BBC One from mid February."

There was also the question as to whether Hawes could carry what was Simm's role and show, and while some will no doubt be disappointed others are not going to find it a problem, according to the Manchester Evening News, which also had a lot of good things to say about the return.

"Not all Life On Mars devotees will love Ashes To Ashes. Some die-hard Sam fans may find his absence just too much to bear. But from where I was sitting, Kudos and the BBC appear to have yet another hit on their hands with a series which may have an even wider appeal."

Haven't seen it so can't say, but missing the central mystery has to hurt. That said, will no doubt be setting Sky+ to record the lot.

News at Ten returns the verdict

That was it? Someone should have said in advance that ITV1's big idea, its new improved 'exciting and engaging' programme, was to jump on the sleazy bandwagon and rake over Princess Diana's life with an 'exclusive' interview.

I know there is an inquest running and it is front page tabloid news and that the Daily Mail is literally wetting itself with excitement (see today's front "Burrell's sensational claims electrify Royal blah blah"). So much so that I thought it appears to have descended into self parody (seriously the frontpage also has a bullet point that reads "What the Queen told the butler", oo-er missus. I kid you not).

So ITV1's 'News at Ten''s big idea is to be the Daily Mail. Second thoughts, this was always its idea. I mean how else can you describe the lighthearted fluffy animal "And finally" stories?

The BBC on the other hand had some real news. Apparently there is something going on in the world and last night it pulled the stops out to show that it is a world class news organisation, while ITV1's 'News at Ten' reborn failed entirely to live up to its self-generated hype and the noise, which was all it had to obscure the fact that it had no "big idea", it had nothing up itself sleeve when it came to the art or reinvention. Its playbook was just same as everyone else's.

That said, I am sure it will get a pick up in the ratings, but after the tabloid sleaze of Diana has gone and the novelty of its return has quickly faded, what then? Well, that's easy the viewers will disappear faster than viewers of 'Celebrity Wrestling'.

Oh, but to be fair, on the plus side, the graphics were good.

Anyway, the ratings will be in later.

January 14 - News at Ten returns and who cares?

'News at Ten' returns to ITV tonight, exciting many column inches, but really with the news already on BBC One at 10pm does anyone care? My straw poll suggests not.

ITV got rid of 'News at Ten' after much debate for good reasons (didn't it want to show us films or 90-minute dramas?) and now it is bringing it back for what? I'm not entirely sure why it is returning after an eight -year hiatus.

When it finally left the screens (after a six -year campaign and a political outcry) for the first time (it has intermittently returned giving rise to the News at When) it was old and tired and leaking viewers.

I do occasionally watch 10 O'Clock News (on BBC), and I understand that 10pm is a good time for a news bulletin, allowing as it does coverage of the US and votes in Parliament.

I understand the ITV logic about the need for a flagship news programme, but borrowing from the past is not the answer. Not for a channel that is trying to reinvent itself with a share price languishing a measly 69p.

Wheeling back Sir Trevor McDonald out of retirement to me only underlines the idea that the ITV service harks back to the past.

If they really had to bring back the brand, doing it without him was the way to go. Of course, he is a much -respected figure, but is about the past and not the present or the future. ITV needed to do something bold and new (I'm not talking about presentation, set design and graphics) but in overall thinking. Reviving News at Ten does not do that.

It will not win ITV a big audience and it will not do its advertisers any favours. It will no longer (again) be able to show a primetime movie or drama on terrestrial TV without interrupting it. Granted, in a multichannel age, this is considered less of an issue, but if that is the case surely ITV1 will only drive viewers away to other channels.
In any event, the numbers will be out tomorrow and the verdict will be in. Maybe I am jumping the gun and judging something that I have not seen, but I don't think that is the case.

The battle will be interesting between ITV and BBC, but with the BBC's global resource and the fact that its news service airs six days a week at 10pm rather than ITV's planned four (Monday to Thursday) it seems clear who the overall winner will be, despite ITN promising more "exciting and more engaging news" than its rival. I'm not quite sure what they mean (more exciting?), but I've seen Sir Trevor do his thing and so has everyone else.

Jamie Oliver and Sainsbury's

Just how seriously can you take Jamie Oliver? On one hand, he is the campaigning self-appointed food ambassador of Britain and on the other he is the backbone of supermarket Sainsbury's advertising? Can you really be both?

Jamie, who is very likeable and makes watchable TV for Channel 4, is back on our screens leading a campaign for better treatment of chickens in 'Jamie's Fowl Dinners'.

Yesterday, we learned that Sainsbury's (along with Tesco and Asda) did not want to take part in a TV debate and that only Waitrose and the Co-op were willing to do so.

This led Oliver to lay into the supermarket group that pays him £1.2m a year to help shift its food.

"I'm really upset ... why didn't they come? What is there to hide? It's shocking that people I work for didn't turn up on the day. I don't know why. Their PR department hasn't even got the confidence to turn up and talk about what they do for millions of people who come through their doors each week. Of course, the supermarket should have turned up. How dare they not?"

The decision not to turn up was wholly in keeping with the actions of big supermarkets who, above all things, loathe transparency and having their domination of the British food market put in the spotlight.

Oliver should know this by now -- he has spent long enough taking the cash from the UK's second biggest chain.

Oliver's fellow chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall found the same reaction in his own chicken odyssey that has also been running this week on Channel 4. No one was prepared to show him how battery farmed chickens were treated on their way to the UK's dining tables.

After the attack and a chat with PR advisers, Oliver was on the record again. This time writing to Justin King, Sainsbury's chief executive, and copied to 150,000 staff nationwide. He was he said on their side.

"I am happy to confirm what I have said on several occasions: that Sainsbury's has the most to be proud of on this important animal welfare issue. Indeed I would not have continued working with Sainsbury's for so many years if I did not believe that you were showing real leadership. Your team have been particularly helpful."

Sainsbury's are clearly keen to keep him. Well, at least that is what King said yesterday: "We're very happy with Jamie. I mean, he's someone who's got an independence of mind and that independence of mind is actually a great benefit to Sainsbury's". But then he would say that wouldn't he? You can't exactly dump him for highlighting your involvement in a very unpleasant aspect of modern food production, can you?

The question that is becoming increasingly apparent is: Is Sainsbury's any good for Oliver? Sure the money must be good, but the association clearly undermines the other work he does.

Primary result and how the media missed it

Oh to be a pollster or media pundit this morning. I have been watching agog as the US media whipped itself into a frenzy over Barack Obama (sorry JFK Mk II) and write off Hillary Clinton, one of its favourite pastimes.
All day yesterday the numbers seemed to get bigger and bigger as a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll put Barack Obama 13 points ahead of Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary.

Every poll seemed to say the same and media pundits rejoiced as headlines such as "Obama set to crush Clinton in primary" and " Clinton's White House hopes unravel" appeared all over the wires.

In the end what did we get? Not the reverse, but a welcome victory for Clinton as New Hampshire voters defied expectations and edged out Obama by two percentage points.

Obama seems like a decent centrist politician whose main qualites at this point are youth, inexperience and the endless use of the word "change", which is employed in vague and amorphous sentences that also employ the word "hope".

Leading liberal media commentators love him. They have gone gaga and, in some cases, lost all touch with reality instead preferring political fantasy. A lot of his support seems down to the fact that he comes with a clean slate. A lot is because he is not Hillary Clinton, whom the likes of the New York Times can not forgive for backing the war in Iraq.

The usually "super-sour Maureen Dowd" in The New York Times said Obama offers Americans "a cool, smart, elegant, reasonable, literary, witty, decent West Wing sort of president".

A West Wing presidency? You see where the liberal fantasy comes in. I loved that show as much as the next liberal lefty. Jed Bartlet was the best president ever ('The West Wing' one of the best written shows ever), but sadly that was a TV show.

The embracing of Obama has come at a high price for Hillary Clinton. In The Times yesterday David Aaronovitch picked up on something that appears to be increasingly apparent as this 2008 presidential race has developed: namely that misogyny appears to be even stronger than racism.

This is echoed again today in The Guardian in Michael Tomasky's piece 'The Clinton rebellion' on how women voters won it for Hillary Clinton last night in New Hampshire and how the media missed the real story because it was blinded.

"I think it was mostly a rebellion by women voters against the media. Most major media outlets had written Clinton's obituary and could barely conceal their joy in doing so. And voters, especially women voters, said: not so fast.

"I've seen this happen before. In the fall of 2000, she debated her opponent in the race for the New York senate seat she won that year. The opponent, Rick Lazio, strode over to her podium and wagged his finger in her face. The media loved the moment, thought Lazio looked tough and declared him the winner.

"But over the next couple days, it emerged in polling that people, especially women, thought Clinton had won the debate. The media missed what had really happened, and reported with glee on Clinton's alleged comeuppance."

A YouTube for (big) ideas?

Is that ever going to fly? A YouTube for ideas is the pitch for a new website dubbed Big Think a sort of ideas are free if you will. Instead of a drunk falling over or an animal jumping out of a window, you get a New York Times editor or business leader talking about the 'big questions'.

Set up by a former Harvard student Peter Hokins and Victoria Brown (they met at PBS), Big Think mixes interviews with intellectuals from a variety of fields, from politics to law to business, and then allows its users to join in the debate like any community website.

It's a video blog, but with the bloggers answering predefined questions from across the political, cultural and spiritual field. Ultimately, topics are sorted into one of two main site categories: "Meta" and "Physical." "Physical" comprises traditional issues like Policy and Politics, Arts and Culture, and Science and Technology, while "Meta" encompasses more abstract philosophical issues like Wisdom, Inspiration, and Faith and Beliefs.

There are plans to add social networking as well (but then everyone has that plan) and it is primarily being targeted at graduates and undergrads, according to Hopkins.

Part of it, he says, is a reaction against celebrity (the interviewer is also taken out of the picture and so the affect achieved is almost a confessional) and I think he's definitely right on this, and you can imagine others trying similar intellectual ventures.

Hopkins told The New York Times: "I've had the general view that there is a hunger for people my age looking for more intellectual content."

Big Think feels very much something like Guardian Unlimited might do almost as an outgrowth of Comment is Free.

You can easily imagine it working and turning into a real weighty community. Rather than popping in to YouTube for some digital rubber-necking to see the latest celebrity disaster, it is easy to see people going to a site like Big Think and hearing what: Mitt Romney, Republican US Presidential hopeful, has to say about the law; Jon Meacham, Newsweek editor, has to say about the rise of fundamentalism; Ted Kennedy on his worldview; or Niall Ferguson on identity. Jon Meacham, So far the site has won backing from investors including: Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist and co-founder of PayPal; Gary David Goldberg, who created the TV shows 'Spin City' and 'Family Ties'; and David Frankel, a venture capitalist who was the lead investor in Big Think.

The only Brit on the site so far (that I saw) offering their opinions is Richard Branson. Is that a plus? Listening to him babble about the media it doesn't seem so.

It has to make money like everything out there and Hopkins is hoping that if they can grow the community enough the ad dollars will flow.

Maybe they will.

Radiohead: the downloadable future?

Despite giving their album 'In Rainbow' away as a free -- or pay as much as you want -- download, Radiohead have managed to top the album charts with the CD release. It is quite a feat, but is it the future of downloads we're seeing or is just Radiohead?

The launch of the Radiohead album has been backed, among other things, by a radio ad campaign that went something along the lines of "Radiohead launches album on exciting new CD format...", which made me smile several times when I heard it on Xfm, unlike most radio advertising (but that is another post).

'In Rainbows' was released back in October and since then I have read different stories suggesting how much fans paid. Some say the average price was £1, while other reports say the price was nearer £2.50 and £4 (I paid a £5).

I suspect that the lower end figure (Radiohead haven't released any numbers of their own) is closer to the truth ,with reports suggesting that many people paid absolutely nothing.

However, last week was the first opportunity to buy the album on CD, which seems increasingly like an antiquated act, but while I download a lot of individual tracks when it comes to albums I still like to buy something solid... I'm not entirely sure why, as long gone are the days where the CDs that I own sit anywhere accessible in my house. Mostly they live in packing boxes in cupboards or stacked up in piles in the spare room and at other places in the house.

I can't remember the last time I turned on my CD player. Maybe it was about the last time I turned on my VCR.

While they were at one point, no longer are CDs like books and so are no longer proudly displayed, their spines perused, but instead once bought and uploaded it is increasingly likely that said plastic case and artwork will ever be looked at again.

So again what’s the point of buying the album?

Personally, I won't be buying the Radiohead album. I mean I like it, it was the most listenable thing since 'OK Computer' and I was happy to pay, but that's where it ends.

But without a label to back them, what a great success story for Radiohead. I'm not sure there are many other bands who could do what they has done and succeed. Of course, there are other than bands of similar stature and with large dedicated global fanbases, but these bands are on major labels and they have shareholders to think of.