The Daily Telegraph can do better than than this

I'm afraid to say that the Daily Telegraph has rather let itself down today.

Not in its coverage of the De Menezes inquest, its sports report or its in-depth and remarkably balanced analysis of the Brand/Grant debacle. No, it is the headline on the lead story on page 6: ‘Cocaine use doubles under Labour'.

I mean, come off it - this government is responsible for many things but it's a massive stretch of the imagination to apportion blame for this.

This is a tactic that the Daily Mail adopts all too often (and is quite rightly ridiculed for) and it takes any credibility away from the story and paper as well as insults the intelligence of its readers.

While there is a genuine news story buried somewhere in the piece and that I'm all in favour of holding the government of the day - and particularly this one - to account, this comes across as a cheap shot and devalues what is, on the whole, an otherwise quality product.

Jonathan Ross is still getting paid £4.6m too much

Jonathan Ross will only get paid £4.6m of our money this year. What a shame.

By suspending him without pay for 12 weeks, the BBC is hoping that by mid-January we will all have forgotten about the appalling lapse in taste and regulatory control that led to the radio programme being transmitted.

And they are probably right. But to me it still doesn't lance the boil for the BBC at a time when the rest of the TV industry is suffering from falling revenues, when the whole concept of PSB is being discussed, when other broadcasters are putting a case for top-slicing of the licence fee and when the licence fee payers themselves are facing unprecedented pressure on their wallets.

Mark Thompson and Tim Davie, who must take ultimate responsibility for this, have emerged anything but covered in glory given how long they took in taking decisive action, for an apparent lack of compliance systems, and for coming up with what, at best, looks like a fudge.

More crucially, if Ofcom do choose to fine the BBC - in other words me and you - I expect this story will rear its heads again, whether Thompson and Davie like it or not.

So what are you going to do now Tim Davie?

Good to see that Ross and Brand have been suspended. Let's just hope that it is without pay and that Mark Thompson finally shows some decisiveness and the ability to reign in an organisation that appears to be spiralling out of control by firing them.

A lot of heat and very little light has been generated by the affair - the only conclusion is that there are not enough rigorous controls on what presenters think they can get away with.

Some commentators claim that the whole thing has been whipped up by the press and that people who didn't listen shouldn't complain - that's clearly nonsense too. Out of sight and out of mind is no excuse and the sight of a 48-year old man giggling like a teenager with someone nearly half his age shows what a complete idiot Ross and how his superannuated ego has got out of control.

It all presents Tim Davie, erstwhile head of marketing at the BBC and now in charge of its radio output, in an interesting position. Will he try and crisis manage as his background will have taught him or will he show some genuine leadership? His response so far hasn't been that impressive - he says that it shouldn't have been broadcast. No Tim, it should never have been allowed to happen in the first place.

Channel 4's current predicament is partly of its own making

Channel 4 chief executive Andy Duncan is having to do what his predecessor, Mark Thompson, did before him - make a series of massive cuts that more careful management would have made unnecessary.

4Radio is the most obvious example - it is testament to Channel 4's ambition that it bothered trying to make a fist of what looked blindingly obvious a complete turkey to most, but this over-confidence has resulted in an embarrassing £9m of unnecessary expenditure at a time when it is pleading poverty.

Does this misadventure remind anyone of Film4?

It has also shut down its third-party sales unit (which history has shown have never been big money-spinners) and a restructure that has resulted in the departure of its marketing director Polly Cochrane as well as other key commercial and advertiser-facing staff.

Of course any fule kno that we are facing unprecedented economic times but more care and less flights of fancy would have made what's beginning to look increasingly like a bloodbath rather less painful

Marketing gets a Prescott rant from JD Sports

I’ve just been shouted at by John Prescott. Well it wasn’t really John Prescott but the executive chairman of Bury-based JD Sports, Peter Cargill, who had taken umbrage at a Brand Health Check we did recently on his rival firm JJB Sports.

‘I’ve nevur red such bloodie crap in me life’, he bellowed down the phone. Apparently the commentators had no idea what they were talking about and that they didn’t realise how expensive rent for the retail outlets were… I tried to explain that it was about the brand rather than the estate but I’m not sure it got through.

Although this is not about media, I though it worth sharing as an example of why we shouldn’t be totally surprised that British businesses are going to the wall at a depressingly regular rate.

Cargill was given a £4m retention bonus this year. Still, it could have been worse - he could have punched me or said that he thought I was a snob.

Why everyone should be made to read The Field

The Field is indisputably the finest magazine that has ever been published and editorially this month's issue is no exception.

The IPC title has recently undergone a revamp, which has been a triumph, and its mix of wittily- and intelligently-written content ranging from shooting tips, estate and gun reviews, property and gundog training make it an essential read for anyone interested in the countryside and fieldsports.

Channel 4 - heal thyself

What the hell was on Channel 4 on Sunday night? The entire peak-time schedule was set aside to puff Peter Kay, most of which was made up of a not very funny programme lampooning those reality shows that, while not to everyone’s taste, have proved to be a real ratings winner to ITV and the BBC.

I certainly don’t like these On Ice, X Facor, Pop Idol, Britain’s Got Talent and all the other derivatives thereof but surely wouldn’t it have been braver if Channel 4 took the mickey out of its own reliance on Big Brother and a seemingly endless number of cheap programmes watching middle-class chancers make money out or middle-class endeavours abroad (chocolates, vineyards and horse breeding have been recent lowlights). Innovative and risky programming? I don’t think so.

This is more interesting than Robert Peston - honest

Given that only Robert Peston has a more influential blog than this one, I thought I'd give you some insight into..... Al Murray's Happy Hour.

Now I'm a massive fan of Al Murray and the show and I think that it provides ITV1 with a very neat young profile that it is often not given the credit for being able to attract, usually because Channel 4 is seen as sexier.

So when ITV kindly offered me a ticket to go and watch a recording I was delighted. It was fun, but slightly odd. The audience seemed to have been largely made up of hardcore Al Murray stalkers - one obese loner sat nearby had been to every recording and was on first name turns with the warm-up man, the security guards and greeted Big Bob as if he was his best mate.

It was also overwhelmingly white and quite downmarket and I think that they perhaps take the pub landlord character as if it was a real person and not a pastiche. In between filming Dawn French, one of the guests, was constantly dabbed down and had her make-up touched-up due probably to her obesity, while Robson Greene tried to come across as a working-class hero but ended up looking a bit of a knob.

Anyway it's worth watching as it shows a commitment to comedy that should be welcomed. And if you're interested, I'm the balding bloke with a beard sat next to a short bloke in a pink shirt

Self-indulgence masked as good intentions?

Last night was Our Proudest Night, according to today's Daily Mirror. You can find out yourself, if you can be bothered, by watching ITV1 tonight.

The Mirror's Pride of Britain Awards is now in its tenth year and to mark the occasion the Mirror boasts that it attracts the ‘top celebrities other award shows can only dream of'. And that's the point.

No-one can dispute that rewarding people who have done brave and noble deeds - such as the Royal Marine who threw himself on a grenade to save his colleagues or the child with a muscle-wasting disease who raises money for charity despite her illness, but isn't slightly cynical that the ‘stars' (Paul O'Grady, Emma Bunton, Cat Deeeley who ‘flew in from the LA) were the ones pictured in their best rags pouting on the front page of today's paper and not the heroes themselves?

We are informed in another headline that ‘Lineker was moved to tears' while Dannii Minogue was apparently seen to ‘dab her eyes'. Such a public display of grief is mawkish and is seen to exploit the misery, from which heroism inevitably stems, of others.

And as for Mirror executive editor Peter Wallis getting a special award from the PM for founding the awards in the first place - pass the sick bag.