Current TV fires Keith Olbermann

I seriously wonder what's been going on between Current TV and Keith Olbermann.

Back in January there was a lot of stories appearing about problems between the two parties.  It seemed to me that the information was being leaked out by someone within Current TV itself, and the slant being given by the stories was very anti-Keith Olbermann.  How much of it was true and how much was spin was quite frankly open for discussion.

But today, came official word from Current that they had indeed fired Keith Olbermann, in an open letter written by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt.

"To the Viewers of Current:

We created Current to give voice to those Americans who refuse to rely on corporate-controlled media and are seeking an authentic progressive outlet.  We are more committed to those goals today than ever before.
Current was also founded on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers. Unfortunately these values are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it.

We are moving ahead by honoring Current's values. Current has a fundamental obligation to deliver news programming with a progressive perspective that our viewers can count on being available daily -- especially now, during the presidential election campaign. Current exists because our audience desires the kind of perspective, insight and commentary that is not easily found elsewhere in this time of big media consolidation. 
As we move toward this summer's political conventions and the general election in the fall, Current is making significant new additions to our broadcasts. We have just debuted six hours of new programming each weekday with Bill Press ("Full Court Press" at 6 am ET/3 am PT) and Stephanie Miller ("Talking Liberally" at 9 am ET/6 pm PT).    

We’re very excited to announce that beginning tonight, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer will host “Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer,” at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT. Eliot is a veteran public servant and an astute observer of the issues of the day. He has important opinions and insights and he relishes the kind of constructive discourse that our viewers will appreciate this election year. We are confident that our viewers will be able to count on Gov. Spitzer to deliver critical information on a daily basis.

All of these additions to Current's lineup are aimed at achieving one simple goal -- the goal that has always been central to Current's mission: To tell stories no one else will tell, to speak truth to power, and to influence the conversation of democracy on behalf of those whose voices are too seldom heard. We, and everyone at Current, want to thank our viewers for their continued steadfast support.

Sincerely,
Al Gore & Joel Hyatt
Current's Founders"

Keith Olbermann responded to this via his twitter account.

"My full statement:

I'd like to apologize to my viewers and my staff for the failure of Current TV.

Editorially, Countdown had never been better. But for more than a year I have been imploring Al Gore and Joel Hyatt to resolve our issues internally, while I've been not publicizing my complaints, and keeping the show alive for the sake of its loyal viewers and even more loyal staff. Nevertheless, Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt, instead of abiding by their promises and obligations and investing in a quality news program, finally thought it was more economical to try to get out of my contract.

It goes almost without saying that the claims against me implied in Current's statement are untrue and will be proved so in the legal actions I will be filing against them presently. To understand Mr. Hyatt’s “values of respect, openness, collegiality and loyalty,” I encourage you to read of a previous occasion Mr. Hyatt found himself in court for having unjustly fired an employee. That employee’s name was Clarence B. Cain. http://nyti.ms/HueZsa

In due course, the truth of the ethics of Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt will come out. For now, it is important only to again acknowledge that joining them was a sincere and well-intentioned gesture on my part, but in retrospect a foolish one. That lack of judgment is mine and mine alone, and I apologize again for it.  "


I imagine this story will continue to play out for a while yet.  I especially wonder if Current will be able to maintain the audience levels they had at around 50,000 during Keith's tenure.  Neither The Young Turks with Cenk Uygur nor The War Room with Jennifer Granholm got  anywhere close to Olbermann's numbers and it's very unlikely that their new show with Eliot Spitzer will match the Olbermann numbers.


Current have been trying to position themselves as the new news network with progressive leanings.  Now they've fired Keith Olbermann, have they got the firepower to be successful?  Time will tell, but I will not hold my breath waiting for them to spring up the ratings charts, because I don't see it happening.

Galloway wins Bradford East: Lessons for all parties

So, George Galloway from the Respect party won the Bradford West by-election.  He won it on a 50.8% turnout, which is pretty high for a by-election, with a majority of 10,100.  That's a pretty impressive performance, no question about it.  In fact, George Galloway's 18,341 votes is just 60 less than Marsha Singh got for Labour in 2010, when the turnout was 64.9%, 14% higher.

So, what does this result tell us?

Well, it shows that George Galloway definitely got his vote out.  His Respect team in Bradford worked their socks off and proved that in a contest invloving the major parties, a minor party can still win.  And it also proved that the other parties didn't really try, including Labour, as they assumed it would be a safe Labour seat.  I remember a work colleague once telling me that when you 'assume' you make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'.  The major parties assumed it was going to go to Labour and the voters made asses of them all.

But it also shows the value of getting your message out there in any number of different ways. He's had a show on talkSPORT for a number of years, but that show has come to an end, not because of the election result, but because talkSPORT is totally removing the remaining non-sport programming from its schedule. 

In New York, George does a 1-hour show on WBAI, on a Wednesday morning.  The show is produced out of London, like all of George Galloway's shows.

But the shows that are most controversial are the ones that are aired on the Iranian international news channel, Press TV.  One is a Press TV original show, called Comment, where viewers phone in to speak to George and his guests.  The other is a show that originally aired on Raj TV before being transfered over to Press TV, George's own news commentary TV show, The Real Deal. 

The shows are now only available online in the UK after Ofcom revoked Press TV's licence. 

Without a doubt, these shows have helped keep George Galloway in the public eye, and kept his viewpoint in people's minds.

But in a sense, this victory also confirms that George Galloway is a political opportunist.  In 1987, George Galloway unseated Roy Jenkins, who had been with Labour before becoming one of the gang of 4 that formed the Social Democratic Party back in 1981.  In the 1997 General Election, the constituencies had changed, and George had to fight to be nominated for the Glasgow Kelvin seat.  But he won that nomination and served another two terms, firstly with Labour, then when he was expelled from the party in late 2003, he joined a newly formed party, known only as Respect.  But he was not going to be able to contest Glasgow Kelvin again, as the constituency was split amongst three new constituencies for the 2005 General Election; Glasgow Central, Glasgow North and Glasgow North West.

And it was then he began his run as a 'parliamentarian of fortune'.  He would challenge and defeat Labour's Oona King in the Bethnal Green and Bow constitiuency.  He chose not to contest the seat again, and instead contested a newly created seat of Poplar and Limehouse in 2010, but came in 3rd. 

It does leave me feeling that George Galloway is a political opportunist, looking for seats that he feels he can make a strong challenge in, because either the sitting MP is seen as weak, or maybe because it is not felt that there will be any strong challengers so the main parties don't spend a lot of money on the campaign, and then Galloway comes in and organises a grass roots campaign that wins out.

And George Galloway does make a reasonable point in saying that was disenfranchisement with the 3 major parties, and he was able to capitalise on that.  But then so should any minor party, or indeed independent candidate.

Overall, there is a lot for all parties and candidates to learn from this.  I hope this makes other elections in future much more unpredictable.

And so, the homogonisation begins...

Yes, the dreaded process of assimilating Atlantic FM into the Heart network has begun.  By comparing the output of Heart Plymouth on DAB and Atlantic FM on FM, I can tell that they are playing excatly the same songs, in exactly the same order.

I am reminded of Star Trek's The Borg in all this.  "We are Heart.  Resistence is futile.  You will be assimilated."  Central playlists, one of the scourges of great radio, going back to days of GWR Group.  Yeuch!!!

Still, this is the reality we have right now, but to know that commercial radio can do so much better, but they seem to only want to do just about adequate, which doesn't cut it with lots of listeners.  There is an old joke that rings so true here.  "Good enough?  Good enough is not good enough, Goodenough!"

Why should listeners put up with good enough, when they can do so much better, and we can hear so much better on the internet.  Content is still king, despite what the big commercial radio groups think.

A Rebuttal to Radio Today's Stuart Clarkson

Radio Today is supposed to be a radio news site.  But last week's commentary from Stuart Clarkson about brands, which although spoke a lot of truth, asked one really stupid question.  Was anybody missing Plymouth Sound?

Yes, people are missing Plymouth Sound, and Gemini FM, and Lantern FM, and South Hams Radio, and Orchard FM and Westward Radio and all the other local names.  Listeners miss that feeling of a local friend they can turn to.  Because of the lack of localness, there are implications for things like flood warnings and weather warnings.  Local radio stations would be able to give detailed warnings of flooding risk, the kind that are released by the Environment Agency.  A network operation even with split links, cannot provide that same degree of localness.  The reason for this is simple, it's impossible to talk about any area like you have a local knowledge, if you are not from that area.  You can't buy the local knowledge that comes from having lived for a while in that area.  That kind of local knowledge cannot be duplicated from a network hub.

But, this week, Stuart Clarkson exposed his own lack of local knowledge when writing a commentary on the aftermath of Global buying Atlantic.  Time to debunk some myths, and translate the rest of it back into actuality.

But first, an actual piece of truth.

"In many cases, small stations are struggling to make ends meet, and for some the only option is to consider whether there’s a better option than handing back the licence and depriving local advertisers of a marketing outlet that’s needed more than ever in these tough economic times."

Yes, this is true, small stations are struggling to make ends meet, and they don't make it any easier for themselves when they do things wrong, like trying to promote a station with a marketing budget of exactly £0.  Social media is helpful as part of a marketing strategy, but it cannot be the entireity of the marketing strategy.
And for a small station that is struggling, asking presenters to help the sales team in selling advertising is a trick that needs to be done.  Even if it's only for an hour or so a day, every little thing that can be done to help a station, should be done.  Unfortunately, far too many stations don't do everything they can to make things work.

"So-called radio fans and industry folk took to social media sites and our own comments box to demonstrate their outrage at the ‘big bad Heart’ and wish bad things to happen to Global."

When listeners realise that the station they used to like is gone, there is a backlash and a drop off in listenership.  Global is basically nothing than GWR version 3.0, combined with the worst of the attitudes that ITV exhibited between about 1993 and 2005.  That's a hell of a lot of negative baggage to be carrying around.  The only way Global could shift that excess baggage is to totally reverse course and it is impossible to see that happening in the current conditions, but it is still extremely unlikely to happen even if the economy improves, because it does not seem to be in Global's heart, pardon the pun, to produce radio that makes people sit up and listen.  They're not making radio that would enthuse people, they are creating aural wallpaper.  Is it any wonder that listeners actually don't like what Global and Heart represent?  Bland maybe safe, but it's not a winner, it's merely a way to avoid losing badly.  Unfortunately, this means that people who are looking for more interesting radio are having to look around for something better.  Hence why the BBC does so well.  BBC Radio right now is just a better worked product.  If commercial radio was more prepared to put more content into their product, they might find it better liked by listeners, and by advertisers.

"Which got me thinking. Isn’t it time we stopped the whinging, and just accepted that the state of the economy and the legacy of licensing decisions down the years means we are where we are? And that we should focus on the future of our industry instead of harping back to a ‘golden era’ that will never return? Just a thought."

No, because factually that does not hold true.  Whilst it may be true that regulatory approval was required to create GWR from the combination of Radio West and Wiltshire Radio, the attitude that became prevalent in that company was a product of greed and ambition.  The fact that so many stations have been bought up to create these networks that we see now, is also partially a fault of the radio stations themselves.  The inability to adapt to changing situations is ultimately what allowed a lot of these stations to be bought out.  Also, newer stations that came on stream didn't actually plan things out properly, with non-existent marketing budgets and no back-up plans in case of problems.  If you can't respond to change, expect to not be around for long.

And by the way, all this talk of harping back to a golden era that will never return, just came from you, Stuart Clarkson.  Nobody is harping back to any so called golden era, which in fact didn't exist.  What we are looking for is for stations to have an attitude towards providing a service that people truly want, something that will enthuse them, rather than providing something bland and uninspiring that they just accept because it's about as good as it currently gets.

"Stop and think for a second about your own radio listening habits. And then think about how a friend or family member who doesn’t work in radio (or have an unhealthy interest in the medium) consumes it. "

Oh, now this is just a humungous insult to radio listeners.  For far too long, anybody who had an interest and expressed a point of view about television was denigrated in the same way.  It is just an insult to people's intelligence, and demonstrates that the only view you're interested in, is the one that agrees with you.  I've heard opinions from a lot of people over the years who would not fit that description, and they have expressed the exact same concerns, the exact same worries, the exact same issues.  Unfortunately it seems that most radio stations seem to be chasing a C2DE audience exclusively, which leaves the ABC1 audience looking elsewhere.  Far too often, you get the sense that your intelligence is being insulted by what you're listening to, that the station is not trying to appeal to a broader market, say BC1C2D, and you're left feeling like they're not speaking to you, and since radio's main benefit is it's ability to speak to people on a 1 to 1 basis, you feel that radio stations are disobeying the first commandment of radio.  Thou shalt always make a connection with your audience.  So not only is this whole idea of someone who has an unhealthy interest in the medium not only an insult, but a deliberate lie.  It says "you'll get what we give you and like it, and if you don't, we're not going to listen to you."  Surely no bigger cardinal sin exists in broadcasting.

"In an age of the internet, smartphones and multi-channel TV, listeners are far less bothered about where their favourite radio station is based than they were in the 70s, 80s or even the 90s."

There is a grain of truth here, but the reason for it is a direct result of the GWR/GCap/Global slow erosion of local radio and radio content.  Over the years, radio companies, primarily led by GWR and Capital, fought against all the regulations that the IBA, Radio Authority and Ofcom have been required to enforce, and it's a battle they've been slowly winning.  Now, if they'd put as much effort into winning listeners over, as they had into fighting the regulator, it's very likely, they wouldn't be fighting for survival, they'd be doing bloody well, making plenty of profits and the BBC would probably be struggling to justify its existence.  If commercial radio was a much better product than it is now, the BBC would not be as successful.

In other words, they're not so bothered about where they get their radio content from, because they've been disenfranchised by commercial radio in this country, which has forced them to look further afield.

Ironically one of the few stations that has bucked the downmarket trend is one that was originally set up to compete with the highbrow BBC Radio 3.  Classic FM had to go slightly down from the Radio 3 level, but could not afford to go too far downmarket, as the audience for classical music, was at a higher demographic level than popular music.  And Classic FM is the most popular national commercial radio station in the country.  It just goes to show that if you go for higher demographics with content, you can win.

Now do that at a local level, and promote and market your station effectively, and anything is possible.

"In many markets, Radios 1, 2 and 4 still knock the local commercial competition into oblivion. Which tells me this: big name DJs (yes I know that contradicts my point above, thanks), a professional sound, and content that has no local relevance are all still a massive hit with listeners."

I'm afraid that that is purely a reflection of how bad the local commercial stations, and in some cases, the local BBC stations, are in those markets.  Any good national product, will defeat any local product that is mediocre or worse, but a good local product beats a good national product every time.  Just ask listeners in Cornwall and Devon.

"So will Atlantic’s change to Heart lose audience for the frequency? I very much doubt it. If anything it’ll go up. Whether you like it or not is irrelevant. A core audience of listeners love it – and that’s good for business, and good for the survival of our industry."

This segment is doubly wrong.  I'll take the second one first.  "A core audience of listeners love (Heart) - and that's good for business, and good for the survival of our industry."  Whilst a core audience may like it, and I have seen first hand evidence that that is actually true, just maintaining your core audience, is not good for your station, in neither the present, nor the future.  Every CEO of any major company the world over, will tell you that you need to grow your business, and for radio, the only way is to increase the listenership, and the only way to do that, is to provide a product that is less aural wallpaper, and more attention seeker.

Now, for his prediction that Heart's audience will rise from Atlantic's levels.  Evidently, he has never spent time in Cornwall or Devon, or actually spoken to anybody round here about radio.  So clearly he doesn't understand the market.  I'll give him an idea just how wrong he is.  There are still major intertown and intercity rivalries, across both Devon and Cornwall.  Plymouth vs Exeter, Truro vs Falmouth, St Austell vs Bodmin, Camborne vs Redruth, and that is not just restricted to the sporting fields.  There is a local saying that comes to mind.  'Redruth is Redruth, Camborne is Camborne, and never the twain shall meet, except at Pool Market on Sundays.'  The whole of the South West, is very much locally driven, locally focused.  When Plymouth Sound and DevonAir back in 1990, said they were going to air joint evening and overnight output, there was hell up from listeners around Plymouth, saying how dare you give us programming from Exeter.  My prediction is to expect a major drop off in listenership, from the current 71,000 down to around 17,000 or even 7,000 within about a year or so.  You already have the Heart Plymouth signal relayed in Cornwall on DAB, along with Capital, XFM and Kiss 100 all relayed from London, and I guarantee you none of the stations have very significant listenerships, not merely because of only being transmitted down here on DAB, but also because they don't connect with listeners down here.  If you expect Heart to connect with listeners, in a market which is strongly local, when they shown no interest in anything strongly local to anywhere, then I'm afraid your logic is very flawed, and your expectations are far too high.

"We must not forget that commercial radio is a business. Yes, in the early days it was about ensuring local democracy, doing ‘lost pets’ features and promoting the bring-and-buy sale at your local town hall. But times have changed. All around the UK, small local stations – whether part of groups or stand-alones – are struggling. And why should those owners carry on throwing money at something that’s showing no signs of returning to the heyday of the 90s when single town stations were changing hands for upwards of three or four million pounds a pop?"

Yes, Commercial Radio is a business, and yet, that is exactly why they need to do more to get back to profitability.  The lower you set your targets, the harder it is to get there.  I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but how often have we seen in sports, teams set a low target and they can't get there, and yet the same team gets set a much higher target in a different game, and they make it with ease.  There is a saying.  'Aim for the moon.  Even if you miss, you will still be among the stars.'  Yes, times are difficult, the money is tight, but if you aim high and truly believe you can get there, then  even if you miss by a little bit, you'll still be doing much better than you are now. 

"I’ve heard comments before along the lines of “Ofcom should just give Heart and Capital a national frequency and let local groups have the local frequencies back to do proper local radio.” If that thought has entered your head then you need to sell your house and move into the real world – and fast. Global don’t want a national licence for Heart or Capital. They might want to share all programming 24/7 on the stations one day, but they don’t want to give up the ability to sell local ads in local markets. That’s their business model and it seems to be doing pretty well for them right now. Programmes of a standard worthy of national radio with a mix of national, regional and local sponsors and advertisers – plus the ability to do just the right amount of local news, sport, travel, weather and what’s ons that the listeners say they want. What’s not to like?"

Quite a lot really.  First of all, they are blocking other competition from getting into the market, and that's enough of a reason.  If they want to do national radio, let then do it on a second national multiplex, which by the way, there's enough demand out there from both sides, from both listeners and from other stations.  Put Heart on there, put Capital on there, put Kiss on there, put XFM on there, and that will free up space on many local multiplexes for other local stations, including those that are still currently FM only, to join the digital revolution, ready for the switch off of analogue radio, a switch off that frankly I don't believe should be happening, but realistically, it looks like it is going to be happening, so the industry needs to get on board, because the train is leaving the station and it seems there will be no delaying it.

And how can you say their business model is working for them, when they haven't made a profit in the last 2 years?

"We’re in the middle of a defining period in our industry and I expect the next few weeks will bring more change too. So let’s try to embrace that change, look for the positives and pull together as an industry to ensure a secure future for radio in the UK."

A defining period???  What we are seeing here is the same thing we have been seeing for the past 20+ years, a slow painful decline in an industry that has forgotten how to go on the offensive, and only play defensive.  If you truly want to secure a future for commercial radio that has the degree of loyalty that we have seen recently from listeners of BBC Local Radio with the cuts that were threatened, then the commercial radio industry needs to buck its ideas up, offer a better product than just aural wallpaper, and get people interested again. 

TV programming: too many repeats?

I spend a great deal of time examining both television and radio output. At times, I wonder just who the television broadcasters think they're serving.

Quite often, shows will be put on a repeat cycle, repeating the same shows or seasons of shows several times in a row. And this is proportedly cheaper than producing new material. Also, studios are getting used less and less for programme production outside of live programming, news and sport.

Most drama are shot film-style using as many locations as is required. Comedy is also increasingly being shot on location with the laughter added in a preview theatre showing.

The thing is, if you look around the world, there isn't really a lack of production going on. There are thousands of new episodes of programmes produced around the world airing everyday, And it seems a shame that most of it doesn't get aired outside the market or country it was produced in.

Of course, there is the argument of relevance, such as NY1's Inside City Hall, which is very relevant in New York City but have absolutely no relevance in Madrid, Spain.

But there is so much material out there that would be relevant even in other countries. And yet, we never get to see it.

Romney wins Illinois: Santorum and Gingrich need to stop.

According to CNN, Mitt Romney is on 562 delegates, compared to Rick Santorum on 249 and Newt Gingrich on 137.  There is only 1267 delegates left, and Santorum needs 895 delegates, 70% of the remaining delegates.  Gingrich is worse off.  He needs 79% of the remaining delegates, a massive 1007 delegates.  And we are about half way through this process.

No way can Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich turn this around.  Both Newt and Rick have indicated they are looking to hang around to the Convention.  But if neither of them have the most delegates, and Mitt Romney does, Romney will be chosen, not Santorum or Gingrich.

Both men need to suspend their campaigns now.

We suspect that Newt might quit the race if he loses Louisiana.  Rick Santorum on the other hand, doesn't seem to understand he's running out of time.  The math is heading up towards impossible, though Newt will get there first, and if neither man wants to be totally shunned by their Republican colleagues, they should both bail out of the race soon.

Of course, it seems that Newt has so much personal animosity to Mitt Romney, I wouldn't rule out Newt making an independent run.  Not that I expect him to do well in such a run.

The UK Budget 2012: Winners and Losers

What George Osborne has done today in Westminster, is akin to being a wolf in sheep's clothing.

On the one hand, he's helped everybody, especially the low paid, by raising the allowance, the starting point at which you earn tax, to £9,205 from April 2013, but he'spenalised the middle income earners, by lowering the point where they start paying 40% down to £41,450.  And the rich get the bonus of having the over £150,000 tax rate lowered to 45%.

He's hurting pensioners by freezing their personal allowances until the personal allowance catches up to it.

Child Benefit will be kept by people earning up to £50,000, and there will be a sliding scale, so that when you reach £60,000, you get no child benefit. But that still means two people, earning £49,000 each could get the child benefit, whilst one earning £61,000 would not.  That inherent unfairness has not been addressed.

Corporation Tax, will get reduced to 24% in April 2013 and down to 22% in April 2014.

Adding a 7% stamp duty for houses worth over £2,000,000 is one thing, and I do like the idea that any corporations paying for houses over £2,000,000 will pay 15%, that closes that little loophole.

Unfortunately, this is a budget that rewards the super rich, and penalises middle income earners, families and pensioners.  It has been dressed up as fair, and it is clearly anything but.

Global buys Atlantic FM: There are no winners here.

I am disappointed at the recent news that Global Radio is buying Atlantic FM and rebranding it to Heart.

Programming will no longer come from Atlantic's studios in St Agnes but from the old Gemini FM studios in Exeter.  Programmes from Exeter, for a Cornish audience.  That's really going to get an audience... NOT!

You see Heart's owner, Global Radio, is a combination of all the worst parts of UK broadcast history.
It goes all the way back to 1980.  Back then, a radio station called Radio West started broadcasting in Bristol.  By 1985 though, it and nearby station Wiltshire Radio were losing money hand over fist.  The IBA, the regulator at the time, examined the situation and was presented by the stations with a proposal.  Allow the two stations to merge, and broadcasts could continue, otherwise, both stations would have failed and the licences would have to be readvertised. 

The IBA knew that re-adveritisng licences for areas where stations had failed could be problematic.  The IBA had previously disallowed a takeover of Centre Radio in Leicestershire in 1983, and the station had gone off air.  The owners of Radio Trent offered to start a new station in Leicestershire, called Leicester Sound, and 11 months after Centre Radio went off air, Leicester Sound signed on.  So the IBA had previous experience of the difficulties of re-advertising a licence.  They were determined not to make the same mistake again.

So the IBA basically allowed the merger to go ahead.  But in the process, a monster was born, that thought that expansionism was the way to go.  Once the IBA had been replaced by The Radio Authority and the ITC by Margaret Thatcher's government, GWR began expaniding it's reach.  GWR teamed up with Capital to buy Plymouth Sound and DevonAir Radio.  DevonAir was replaced by Gemini FM in a franchise auction, and Capital basically sold the rest of Plymouth Sound to GWR.  GWR continued to pick up stations including the Chiltern Radio network and would begin the process of slowly eroding localness from it's output.  First, all the AM stations were replaced by a networked Classic Gold service with just 4 hours of local output per day for 6 days out of 7, a total of 24 hours of local programming a week.

Then GWR tried to get local programming cut down to just 13 hours a day across their network, but the regulator said that it had to be 16 hours a day.  As a deliberate move, they made 3 of the local hours 3am to 6am in the morning, at the most unprofitable time of the day.  It was as though they were trying to send a message to the regulator that local doesn't work.  Network programming ran from 7pm till 3am.

Eventually, OFCOM backed down and basically local programming has been slashed on Heart ever since.  There is now only 7 hours of "local" programming on Heart on weekdays, and 4 hours at weekends, a total of 43 hours a week.  The company behind Heart, Global Radio, basically these days is a mixture of the GCap attitudes and the attitude of Charles Allen, who basically oversaw the downgrading of ITV from a serious regional broadcaster with a unique selling point, to a company that is little different from the myriad of digital TV broadcasters.  In short, it is the worst of all media worlds, joined together in one place.

People have said this will increase choice.  It won't.  Heart were already broadcasting in Cornwall via DAB Digital Radio, relaying the Devon service with Plymouth ads.  The least I can hope for is that on the Cornwall mux they arrange to playout the Cornwall ads instead.  Other than that, there would be no discernable difference in output, and we have lost the Atlantic FM sound on FM, to make way for Heart.  Jermey Scott called this an upgrade for Atlantic.  it is not, it is a downgrade, and most listeners in Cornwall will know this.
Expect the listenership figures for Atlantic/Heart to plummet from the current 71,000, to a level nearer 17,000 or even maybe nearer 7,000.

Pirate FM and BBC Radio Cornwall will undoubtedly be the beneficiaries.  There's enough history as well to back that up.  In 1999, Plymouth Sound AM was replaced by Classic Gold.   The figures dropped from 67,000 to 20,000.  Pirate FM picked up most of the listeners who deserted.  Now, history will repeat itself, and Global Radio haven't learned the lessons of the past.  If you don't learn from the past, you are destined to repeat the mistakes of the past, which is what Global will do.

The worst part is whilst Atlantic FM never made a profit, they were almost as well respected as Pirate FM.  They knew they were coming into a tough market with both Pirate FM and BBC Radio Cornwall being long established and successful stations.  That Atlantic FM couldn't be profitable despite their best efforts is regrettable, and understandable.  But the fact that Global haven't understood the dynamics of the area they are proposing to move into and are going to output to Cornwall from Exeter and London, shows how much the company is out of touch with actuality. 

Global Radio haven't even been profitable the last 2 financial years, yet Ashley Tabor has taken home about £6million in bonuses.  Bonuses for failure.  Failing to grow in terms of listeners, and failing to grow in terms of credibility and respect.

Global is about as hated as GWR Group and GCap Media were before them.  That sort of baggage only weighs a company down.  Global is a company that needs to change it's whole direction and priorities.  Being overfocused on cutting costs, does not lead to making profits.  Their whole mindset, has to turn towards growth, growing the company and investing in its future.  ITV know all about that.  Since Charles Allen left ITV, they have been trying to grow their business, but the market does not have faith in ITV.  It was in 2007 that ITV last saw their share price above the £1 level that indicates market confidence in a company, and even though they have recovered from their March 2009 lows of around 18p per share, they have still yet to recover above the £1 level.  Global is not a plc, unlike ITV, so it's shares do not trade.  But I would imagine that if they did trade on the stock exchange,they would similarly trade below £1.

This move is not good for commercial radio as a whole, and further reinforces the image that Global, through their actions, are slowly destroying local radio, in the same way that ITV decimated regional television.  And whilst that definitely isn't what they are trying to do, that is the perception they are giving off, and as I always say, perception IS reality.

Puerto Rico goes to Romney

Well, CNN and AP are projecting a win for Mitt Romney, and a fairly convincing one.  With 16% of the vote in, Mitt Romney has 83% of the vote.  Nobody else is anywhere close.  So under the rules, despite it being proportional, Mitt Romney is projected to walk away with 20 delegates from this one territory, a territory that will be voting on statehood in November.  We could soon be talking about Puerto Rico as the 51st state in the union.

The greater the delegate lead that Mitt Romney has, the less likely it looks that Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul can pull off the amount of delegates required.  In fact, Mitt Romeny is on course, based upon the numbers of delegates won so far, to reach 1215 delegates, 71 over the winning line.

Rick Santorum, needs 2/3rds of the remaining delegates to win, and in this contest, that is looking more and more unlikely.

This race is to all intents and purposes, Mitt Romney's to lose.  But it doesn't seem likely that he will.

Update: Fabrice Muamba Collapse

BBC News now reporting that Fabrice Muamba is critically ill in intensive care.  Sky News is still reporting his condition as stable.  Both maybe right, but this dichotomy is not helpful to those of us who want the best. 

Come on BBC, Sky.  Get your act together.

Update: Sky News now updated their ticker to say he is "critically ill".

Fabrice Muamba Collapse: BBC not reporting correctly?

It is strange right now. BBC News at 9pm is reporting the collapse of Bolton midfielder Fabrice Muamba. They have mentioned that there is no update on his condition.

But Sky News have been reporting that the hospital released a statement to say that he is in a stable condition and breathing again.

How come there is this dichotomy in coverage? How come BBC News have not gotten that statement from the hospital? I have to wonder.

Viewpoint News Roundup: Friday 16th March 2012

Fishbowl LA: Rick Santorum is planning a war on hardcore pornography, whilst his supporters in the bible belt are the most regular viewers of internet porn.

Can you say "hypocrites"???

Huffington Post: Osama Bin Laden may have been crazy and fundamentalist, but he wasn't stupid. Al Qaeda's leader disliked Fox News Channel and wasn't planning to send them any tapes either.

Interesting quotes here. "...As for Fox News let her die in her anger...", and "...Fox News Channel, which falls into the abyss as you know, and lacks objectivity, too." It's always strange how people cannot see their own lack of objectivity, but can see it easily in others.

NHK World: It seems that whilst Takeshi's Castle continues to get aired on Challenge, Takeshi Kitano's newest project will start airing on NHK World in April.

Takeshi's Art Beat seems to be a somewhat personal look at arts and artistic pursuits. Should be interesting.

EuroNews: German Chancellor Angela Merkel may be safe, but a snap election in Nordrhein-Westfalen will be a big test of her popularity, as voters seek to replace the SPD/Greens coalition that fell apart.

Interestingly, one of her own ministers is standing in that election, but says he won't leave his national role if the CDU loses. That kinda complicates matters.

USA 2012: Alabama, Mississippi, Hawaii, American Samoa

Well, last night during US primetime, it seemed pretty clear that Rick Santorum had a good night. But in the cold light of day now, the figures don't really back up that good feeling he might have had last night.

Despite winning the vote in the two states with the most delegates at stake last night, Rick Santorum has not gained much ground on Mitt Romney. Here's how the figures look today.

Alabama was the state that Santorum won most comfortably, with 34.5% of the vote, against Newt Gingrich in 2nd with 29.3% and Mitt Romney coming 3rd with 29.0%. However in the current delegate count, that only gives Santorum 18 more delegates, with Gingrich getting 12 and Romney 11. 9 delegates at this stage are unallocated. That only gives Santorum a net gain of 7 delegates.

In Mississippi it was much closer, with Santorum getting 32.9% with Gingrich getting 31.3% and Romney getting 30.3%. Which means that in the delegate count, Santorum gets 13, Gingrich 12 and Romney 12. 3 delegates were unallocated. So only a net gain of 1 delegate for Santorum. Total net gain, in the biggest states that were up for grabs last night, 8 delegates.

And that gain is pretty much wiped out from Hawaii. There Mitt Romney won handily, with 45.4% of the vote, Rick Santorum coming second with 25.3% and Ron Paul coming in third with 18.3%. In the delegate count, this means Romney got 9 delegates, Santorum 4 and Ron Paul 1. 6 delegates remain unallocated. That result cuts Santorum's net gain down to just 3 delegates.

And CNN reported that Mitt Romney also won the caucus in American Samoa, which would be another 6 delegates, and 3 more unallocated, though this has yet to be confirmed.

According to Politico, the delegate count is now Romney 463, Santorum 247, Gingrich 127, Paul 47. 100 delegates remain unallocated.

Sunday sees Puerto Rico going to their polls for 20 at large delegates and 3 RNC delegates, winner takes all. Santorum I understand is going to spend two days there to try to win the territory. But I would expect Romney to win this. Which then leads us to next Tuesday and Illinois, which has a large 69 delegate count up for grabs.

With Newt Gingrich not getting any wins last night, especially in his favoured Southern states, he really needs to ask himself if he has a way to the nomination. It seems that Santorum and Gingrich are banking on a brokered convention. But unless the convention goes with the candidate that has the most delegates, any other candidate is going to seem incredibly weak, espeically if they haven't been a part of the process. I can't see anybody other than Mitt Romney being the nominee. The way the states line up, and the fact that California on June 5th is 172 delegates, winner takes all, which I seriously think is one of Romney's states, I just can't see how either Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrinch are going to look like anything else other than also-rans the whole way.

Alabama and Mississippi Primaries tonight.

So we have two primaries tonight in Alabama and Mississippi. And the number of delegates that are available to the candidates are falling.

Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are behind in the delegate race, as is Ron Paul, but we know that Ron Paul is not interested in getting the nomination, but in taking the Republican party away from social conservatism, which moderates and independents do not support.

Mitt Romney needs another 713 delegates out of the remaining 1491. That's about 48%. Rick Santorum needs 932 delegates, or 62.5% of the remaining delegates. Newt Gingrich needs 1041 delegates or 70% of the remaining delegates. Because most of the remianing states assign delegates proportionally, the chances for Santorum and Gingrich to make up the required number of delegates is shrinking down to a very small chance. I'd say both of them have two chances, dogs chance and no chance at all.

And Gingrich has put all his eggs into these two baskets. If he doesn't win both states, he will unquestionably leave the race. But whether this actually benefits Rick Santorum or not is open for debate. Yes, the arguement has been that Newt Gingrich + Rick Santorums vote counts in several states would have taken those states away from Mitt Romney, but it does seem that it is almost too late for that to be a major factor anymore. Romney is the leader in the delegate count, the only count that really matters.

Oh and currently, there are 82 unassigned delegates, who will probably go to Mitt Romney anyway, or whoever has the most number of delegates at the end of this. I cannot see any of these currently unpledged delegates going any other way than to the candidate that will have the most delegates, and since I fully expect that to be Mitt Romney, that's where I think they will go.

Today, theres 50 delegates in Alabama, 40 delegates in Mississippi, plus 20 delegates in Hawaii and 9 delegates in American Samoa. That's 119 delegates out of the 1491 remaining. Unless either Santorum or Gingrich get more delegates than Romney, BOTH should exit the scene, stage right, on the double.

NewsCorp: How much longer can it survive?

So today, we've had 6 more arrests in this NewsCorp saga. One of those arrested, Rebekah Brooks, has been previously arrested in relation to this ongoing saga, the other 5, including her husband, the racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks, and News International's Head of Security Mark Hanna, are new arrests in the case.

Rebekah herself has also been a victim of the scandal, after it emerged at the end of February that her phone had been hacked by News Of The World journalists, whilst she was Editor of The Sun. Incredibly irony or poetic justice? One thing is for sure, the old adgae of there being no honour amongst thieves, seems to hold true for Murdoch employees too.

Does anybody else think she is never going to return to NewsCorp after this? More by her own choice though I believe rather than Murdoch not wanting her back. After this episode, she'll want to stay out of the public spotlight for as long as she can.

And with Ofcom currently investigating to see if NewsCorp are a fit and proper company to hold a broadcast licence, for BSkyB, how long will it take before Rupert Murdoch finally gives up and slowly dissolves the whole company, selling off assets for as much as he can so he can live out some form of retirement in relative peace, rather than ending his days in a prison cell and his assets sold off for the mere pitance of their real worth.

Update on Breitbart's Derrick Bell non-story.

Media Matters for America is one of the right wing's favourite bogeymen. The reason is simple, they call out the right wingers using their own words.

But this time, they have surpassed themselves with their takedown of the Breitbart silliness about Barack Obama, and the late Derrick Bell. After all, Derrick Bell died back in October 2011, so he's not around to defend himself.

I didn't realise this video was already out and has been since 2008, nor did I know that the first reports emerged in 2007. But then, I can't follow every single media news source on my own.

Doesn't stop me trying though.

Viewpoint Hall Of Shame: Andrew Breitbart

In response to Keith Olbermann suspending Worst Persons In The World again, I'm going to start posting nominations to the Viewpoint Hall Of Shame. Whenever I see something worthy of a "Hall Of Shame" entry, I will blog about it here.

Today's nomination goes to the late Andrew Breitbart. Primarily because he'd acquired the tapes and even though he passed away before they were released, it is just another example of the kind of work that he made famous.

Back in college, Barack Obama praised the first tenured African American law professor at Harvard University, Professor Derrick Bell. The right chooses to portray Bell as a racialist, a radical. Sean Hannity showed the footage on his Fox News show last night, and this morning, Joel Pollak, Editor in Chief of Breitbart.com appeared on CNN to proclaim the bombshell. But Soledad O'Brien, much like myself, couldn't see any bombshell information in that footage.

What Breitbart and the others on the extreme right seem to forget is that life is all about growing, progressing, going forward, not going backwards or standing still. The people who are most looked up to are the ones who moved forward, not backward.

There is growing distrust about official media, corporate media and government information, but that doesn't mean you have to belive the first conspiracy theory that comes along. People who propogate these theories often have something to gain by promoting it. So be equally wary of those who claim that only they have the real knowledge. This smacks of desperation by a right wing media machine that knows the Republican candidates for President this year are the weakest ever. And even Mitt Romney, who is the strongest of the candidates, is seeing himself get weaker and weaker because he is being forced to go further to the right now, at the cost of attracting independents and moderates, the REAL mainstream of American politics, later.

That's why Andrew Breitbart posthumously gets nominated for the Viewpoint Hall Of Shame.

Showcase 2 showing itself up, again

Usually once I've blogged once about something, that's it. Some stories might get updated, but generally once I've said my piece, I don't need to say it again.

Unfortunatgely this time, it seems I have to.

Last month, I blogged about Showcase 2 showing a recording of London's New Year's Day Parade, every night at 1am. Well for a couple of weeks they took it off and replaced it with the Landscape Channel in that 3 hour slot.

But it seems that they haven't learnt their lesson. As I write this now, what is on Showcase 2? London's New Year's Day Parade. Again.

What did I say last month about this? I'll tell you.

"It was a time-sensitive event when you first showed it. Now it's stale and out of date. Get it off your channels. Put something a little less uninteresting on..."

And exactly what has changed between then and now? It's more stale, more out of date, the last thing you want in March is some disembodied voice, in this case Alan Dedicoat's, cheerfully wishing you a happy new year in March!

And once again, it is scheduled to last another week.

Take it off the air, put the Landscape Channel back on overnight.

Breaking News: Rush Limbaugh apologises.

Rush Limbaugh has released a statement on RushLimbaugh.com

"For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke.

I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress. I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit?In my monologue, I posited that it is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone's bedroom nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a Presidential level.

My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices."

This is a rare moment, and I applaud Rush for actually realising he went too far.

But, in my honest opinion, Rush Limbaugh should be removed from the airwaves by his syndicators, and he should never be allowed anywhere near a radio studio ever again.

There's an old saying. "With great power, comes great responsibility". As welcome as the apology is, he has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he is not a responsible broadcaster.

ITV finally gets something right.

Today, I noticed that finally, ITV1+1 shows the correct region. Until recently, in the South West of England, you couldn't guarantee that every programme that aired on ITV1, would air 1 hour later on ITV1+1. That was because whilst our ITV1 region is Westcountry West, our ITV1+1 region was Wales, and there were several notable differences. Regional news was different and there were minor variations in the schedule.

Now, we have the right region on ITV1+1, Westcountry West, on both Freeview and Sky. Knowing ITV's past history as well as I do, and having only heard about changes happening on the Sky platform, I was half expecting to find ITV1+1 had been changed to Westcountry East on Sky, and to still be Wales on Freeview. Thankfully, ITV managed to surpass my low expectations, so congratulations ITV for managing to do that.

Unfortunately, I have even less expectation of ITV doing anything that would make me think they would be getting anywhere close to providing a proper regional broadcasting service.

Andrew Breitbart 1969-2012

I got the surprise of my life just now when I had an alert pop up to say that Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blogger and web site publisher, had died at just 43.

First off, I didn't know he was so young. He always looked to me like he was in his mid to late 50s.

I don't think there was a single issue that I agreed with him on, but none the less, my thoughts right now, are with his family. They have lost a father, and a husband.

Breitbart's company has issued a statement that is up on the Breitbart.TV website.