Search results matching tag 'bbc'

Oh no. Tonight is Children In Need

1704826 — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:24:00 GMT

I love television - at its best it brings us all together and acts as social glue.

But at its worst, it's creepy, smug, self-satisfied and sanctimonious. And tonight's the night when that becomes most apparent.

While I don't have any massive problem with the charity concerned (although I'm not yet convinced that it is the BBC's remit to extricate funds from viewers when it won't even tell them how much it pays its 'talent'), I do with this show.

Tonight's highlights include the hosts of The One Show doing a skit from Fame, musical contributions from those tremendous actors from The Bill and Hollyoaks, and Sir Terry Wogan appearing in a special edition of Lark Rise to Candleford.

Wogan says that he will continue presenting the event until 'hell freezes over'; I never thought that I'd look forward to that happening.

In case you missed it - About Time on Dragon's Den

273167 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:18:00 GMT

It's on You Tube and brought here to you - myself and Iain getting a going over on the BBC's Dragon's Den. At that time we had not sold any. This is just a snap shot of our thorough grilling by the definitely interested Dragons. Still, Iain's projections were right - and here we are two years later breaking into 3 big markets and growing strongly. Ah well...

Events dear boy, events

1704826 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:33:00 GMT

Finally. ITV has managed to fill one of its senior management roles after months of dithering and indecision.

The broadcaster has hardly covered itself in glory in the whole shambolic episode but at least it has now managed to find someone to fill its chairman position.

So what does Archie Norman bring to the role? Well, much like his newly-appointed oppo at Channel 4 he is familiar with the workings of government and lobbying - a crucial attribute with a likely new administration that has already placed its tanks on the BBC's lawn and has been accused of cosying up to the Murdoch empire.

But more importantly it was Norman who was responsible for overseeing the sale of Asda to US giant Wal Mart. Expect, in the mid-term, to see him trying to find a buyer for ITV in a similar vein. Which, I think, is a terrible shame.

Is Murdoch really plannng a Google free future?

255762 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:40:00 GMT

Rupert Murdoch has taken time out to tell Sky News Australia why he might ban his content from Google and why he'd rather have fewer visitors coming to his (paid for) websites (not to mention a quick bash at the thieving BBC).

In an interview with Sky News Australia News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch has been explaining why (but not how) people will be paying to read The Times and his other newspapers in the future.

He also said that News Corp might remove its content from Google searches. The implications of that are quite serious and far reaching and I really can't see it happening. Even for paid content isn't Google a marketing opportunity that showcases content?

Anyway, Murdoch raised an interesting point about the role of Google and other aggregators. Asked if it wasn't a two way street when Google sends traffic to a News Corp websites Murdoch disagreed arguing that the value of someone coming from Google was not the same as a loyal reader.

"No[ it's not a two way street with Google sending traffic] What's the point of someone coming occasionally who likes a headline they see on Google? Sure we go out and say we have so many millions of visitors. The fact is that there is not enough advertising in the world to go around to make all the websites profitable. We'd rather have fewer people coming to our websites but paying. They don't suddenly become loyal readers of our websites."

Two things: loyal readers might come via Google on occasion and secondly how do you become a loyal reader in the digital age?

Murdoch earlier in the interview said that it was difficult to get people under 30 to buy newspapers. If that's true and these readers surf pages on Google instead of thumb pages then how do you win them over and make them pay? Where do you get these loyal readers from? And as I said earlier doesn't search have a role to pay in that process?

I think it does. Granted many people clicking on a news headline might only be after that single story and that alone, but others might be after more. Or more of the same.

He went on in the interview to raise, but not answer one of the biggest hurdles that News Corp and others face in the introduction of paid content. If you can't get people under 30 to read newspapers (although clearly that is not entirely true) then how do you get them to pay online and become loyal readers?

He also again failed to mention any specific system of paid content that News Corp was looking at although he did dismiss the freemium model and said that like the Wall Street Journal (although do you think he'll get some to finally fix that WSJ.com glitch where you put a headline in quotes into Google and get to read the story for free?) everything was likely to go behind a pay wall.

He also took time to accuse the BBC and its Australian counter part ABC (which described Murdoch's paid content plan as the "classic play of an empire in decline) of stealing his content.

"We're better and any rate if you look at their stuff (the BBC and the ABC) most of their stuff is stolen from the newspapers now and we'll be suing them for copyright and they'll have to spend a lot more money on reporters covering the world."

As if The Times or the Sun never picked up on a BBC story.

Follow me on Twitter

Video Interview - Ben Chapman - BBC Radio 1 - Social Media

980070 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:56:00 GMT

More social media insight! This time from Ben Chapman who heads up interactive for BBC Radio 1.

In this 12 minute interview he serves up how they use digital to enhance radio for their 11 million weekly listeners.

Twitter Free Zone Please - Just Occasionally!

980070 — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:44:00 GMT

I met an Oscar winner last night. Estelle Parsons, who won best supporting actress in Bonnie and Clyde, was performing in August – Osage County at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle and I was lucky enough to get back stage and shake her hand.

The play was awesome! A company of about 12 actors had 2000 enthralled in a tale of family strife which included some hilarious and very sad moments too.

What it didn’t contain, even though it was a new play, was any mention of sodding Twitter!!!

Now don’t get me wrong.......I love Twitter, and I also love Stephen Fry, but was his banter with a detractor over the weekend really worthy of national news?

BBC readies social media make-over

255762 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:17:00 GMT

A couple of reports around today on the BBC's social media plans saying that as soon as this weekend it will begin adding applications to support its most popular shows.

Broadband TV News says that the likes of 'Strictly Come Dancing' will get the social media treatment first and that the BBC is working on bringing in third party partners (such as buzz tracker), which cold extend to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

It quotes Anthony Rose, BBC’s controller of Vision and Online, speaking at the Social TV Forum in London, who interestingly talks about the status of the BBC in relation to the rest of the web.

"An island in this socially connected world is very tricky, you don't just want to have BBC friends, but also Facebook friends if you have them already, so opening it up is very important."

Sounds like a change in thinking to me. Much needed. The site also says the BBC is looking at some kind of real-time search that will allow visitors to the site to "follow" content on the BBC and from outside, which would then be delivered as a feed.

MediaGuardian has more on this and it says BBC sources have told it that that the new-look social media enabled site will be on stream by March and that the corporation is researching "what the next generation in social media will be".

It also quotes Rose, he talks about innovations such as allowing users to comment on particular moments of shows while watching and see what other users said about the same moment "or simply rate moments with 'Boo!', 'Good!' or 'Gosh!'." Sounds like 'Strictly Come Dancing' territory to me.

Follow me on Twitter

Re: RE: BBC to close Good Homes magazine

1932328 — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:39:53 GMT

Firstly Monty, BBCWW has a remit to deliver profit back to the BBC - which will presumably offset the license fee so clearly it does have something to do with license fee payers. Secondly, you can sell anything at the right market price. I'll give you £1 for the title.

Consumers Won't Pay for Newspaper Content

2619528 — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:14:00 GMT

The story that won't seem to lie down and die quietly rumbles on as News Corp desperately continues to try to lead their fellow publishers into pay-for-content models. If they could get everyone to follow suit, this strategy may well work - hence James Murdoch's recent vitriolic attack on the BBC.

This area is being explored this week by PaidContent, who have commissioned a poll by Harris Interactive and asks the question if consumers will pay and if so, how much? And the answer is not encouraging in any way for the publishing industry. Firstly, only 5% of respondents say that they would pay if their favourite website began charging, with 74% saying that they would simply seek out a free alternative. 8% said that they would just read the free headlines, which is quite a clever work. The final 12% said that they didn't know what they'd do, which I guess is what happens if you include Sun readers in the poll. Only jesting, for those you Sun readers out there, but are you sure you're in the right place? Sorry, must stop.

If that wasn't bad enough, the 5% would said that they would pay, consistently chose the lowest possible option they were given when asked how much they'd fork out. 72% said that they'd pay £10 for an annual subscription, 71% said that they'd be prepared to cough up 25p for a day pass and 68% said that they'd pay 1 - 2p to access an article.

If we do some back of the envelope maths on the basis that The Sun has 30 million online users, 5% makes about 1.5 million who would pay. If they each pay the £10 annual subscription that they claim, this would generate £15 million per annum - nice to have, but hardly the windfall anticipated at only 0.005% of News Corp's turnover. Having said that, if Unique Users plummet like that, advertising revenues will quickly follow suit, so if there are any net increases in revenue, it's likely to be marginal in the best possible case scenario.

Rupert Murdoch also announced last week that the WSJ is going to start charging for access via mobile, a strategy I suggested here that they explore a few weeks back, so nice to see he's reading :-) However, while they haven't yet announced detailed plans, it sounds like they're going for a pretty obvious and I'm afraid, out of date, approach of sticking content behind a paywall and what's worse, they'll be charging mobile users (Blackberry and iPhone anyway) double that paid by PC users - $2 per week, rather than $1.

There's an enduring myth (one of 10 discussed here) about the mobile channel that citizens will happily pay on mobile for products and services they expect for free online. They won't. So while the answer to publishers' woes might involve mobile, they're going to have to get much more creative in how they approach the problem. The old equation of

Cover Price + Advertising = Huge Profits

no longer computes in digital media. While advertising revenues can still generate a substantial contribution, publishers need to look at new and creative ways to supplement their income, not rely on business models that are more than a century old and are about as valuable as last century's news.

The BBC could learn something from Silvio Berlusconi

673734 — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:06:00 GMT

One thing you have to admire about the Prime Minister of Italy are his balls. Metaphorically speaking of course.

Last week, trapped in yet more scandal over "beautiful women" attending his parties, he continued to insist that he has never paid for sex: "For those who love to conquer," he said, "the joy and the most beatiful satisfaction is in the conquest. If you have to pay, I ask you, what joy is there?"

A question every TV viewer in the UK should be asking as they are told to fork out £139.50 a year to access the BBC's services. And also a question BBC director-general Mark Thompson should be considering as he heads a review of the BBC's operations after being told to do so by the BBC Trust.

Yet with the BBC in charge of a review of its own future, you could say it's unlikely that any significant or welcome change will result. And commercial media owners can hardly be encouraged by the BBC's attitude at the recent Edinburgh TV Festival when the response from BBC executives to criticism from the likes of Sky's James Murdoch seemed to smack of arrogance and being out of touch with audiences.

While I'm not convinced that the BBC's investment in online services is wholly a bad thing for the public or even the commercial sector - everybody seems set to benefit from the leadership role the BBC played in developing the iPlayer - at least four measures should emerge from the review.

These are: the closure of digital TV service BBC3, which wastes tax payers money while offering nothing that commercial rivals cannot; a ban on cross-promotion of BBC TV and radio on other platforms; stricter controls on services such as Radio 1 which seem intent on aggressively copying commercial services rather than offering anything challenging or groundbreaking; and, finally, top-slicing of the hideously expensive licence fee to help the local news providers that have been damaged by the BBC's online investment. Even the money saved from closing BBC3 would be of some use to these regional news organisations.

Not that much of this seems likely with BBC executives responsible for the decisions. While Thompson's comments today on part-privatisation of commercial arm BBC Worldwide hint at a willingness to concede an inch, they may be designed to mask the BBC's intention not to do very much at all about playing a constructive part in a diverse media landscape.