Torygraph thinks BBC should forget about the internet. Quell Surprise!

As Adam Savage used to say on Mythbusters when something easily predictable happened, "What... a... shocker."

This may have been the easiest column to predict.  Neil Midgley wrote that the BBC should forget about the internet, and focus on finding the next Archers, or the next Countryfile.  Those two programmes have really gotten a lot of attention lately.  The Archers garnered the attention recently for a powerful spousal abuse storyline, and rightly so, spousal abuse is an issue that rarely gets talked about in the media in any kind of meaningful way.  Countryfile has recently had some its best viewing figures in its 28 year history.  Not too shabby by any stretch, but not that important either.

However, in trying to criticise the BBC for closing the linear version of BBC Three, Midgley made one crucial mistake in his attempt at analysis.

"When Lord Hall predicts that everything will one day go on-demand – and when, in fulfilling that credo, he starts to scythe bloodily and irretrievably through the creative flesh of the BBC – he is taking one trend and mistaking it for another. Yes, more people are subscribing to on-demand services such as Netflix. Yes, they are binge-watching shows such as Game of Thrones as “box sets”. Yes, teenagers now have iPads and smartphones on which they can watch TV shows. But where Hall makes his mistake is in believing that this new ability to watch on-demand, and on different devices, is a mortal threat to traditional channels."

Sadly, Neil Midgley underestimates the impact of on-demand programming.  He's not the first, and he sure won't be the last.  Even those in the broadcasting industry, like Ginny Hubbard of iHeartMedia, who only discovered podcasts when Serial launched in 2014 are late to the on-demand party.  Podcasts have been around since 2003.

We're already seeing that on-demand watching and listening is having a massive effect in terms of garnering attention from the public.  Programmes that have traditionally been watched as part of a linear stream, now no longer need to be.  The future of shows like Doctor Who, Eastenders, and The Archers, is on-demand.  Because these programmes are produced weeks, even months in advance, watching them at a pre-determined time is no longer a requirement.  iPlayer allows people to watch it when they want to, not at a time of somebody else's choosing.

But if Neil Midgley thinks that Lord Hall thinks that on-demand is going to end linear TV, he's wrong.  There just won't be as much linear TV to go around.

In the old days, significant chunks of programming, would be aired live, as there was no other way to do it cost-effectively.  Nowadays, outside of news and sports, it's only magazine programmes and topical debate shows that are aired live.  The likes of This Morning, Loose Women & The Wright Stuff are the kind of shows that go live to air.  But as the likes of Doctor Who and Eastenders become more widely watched on demand, and will eventually leave linear TV, maybe in 10 years, maybe in 20 years, maybe in 50 years, other programming will have to replace it, and most of this will be live.  Live sports is one of the few things on the air right now that is attracting significant viewership on a regular, consistent basis.  Why is this?  Because live programming can't be spoiled by over-excitable PR people accidentally giving away key moments and points whilst trying to tempt you in to watch it.  How effective would the reveal of Darth Vader being Luke Skywalker's father have been in 1980, if the PR guys had included that moment in any of the trailers?  It would have had all the impact of a damp squib.

The future is already starting to happen, and the result of that means that there won't be nearly as many linear channels in the future as there is now.  Whether channels like Sky 1, Sky Living, Sky Atlantic or Sky Arts will still be around 20 years + down the line, is hard to predict, but given the trends we are already seeing, I am guessing that at least two of those brands will not survive into the era when On-Demand will be the primary way to watch television programmes.  How many of the myriad of channels out there will survive into the new era?  Maybe no more than 60-100, maybe not even that many.

But the ultra-conservative Torygraph, is frankly nuts if it thinks that the BBC should completely forget about the growth market that is On-Demand, in favour of old style linear TV.  No business worth it's place in the world would deliberately ignore a growing market, in favour of a market that really peaked back in the early 2000s.  Without turning linear channels into channels that favour and produce almost exclusively, live programming, On-Demand would kill of linear TV.  Maybe not for a long time, maybe 20 years, maybe 50 years, maybe even more than that, but eventually it would, if it could.

We have lots of history on our side regarding this.  People were afraid that motion pictures were going to spell the end of live theatre.  It didn't.  People were afraid that television was going to spell doom for the motion picture industry.  Serials and newsreels disappeared, but over 60 years on, the motion picture industry is as strong and vibrant as it ever was.  Why did these things not fall by the wayside?  They adapted to the situation and found a way to thrive, and linear TV will do the same, by becoming a predominantly live medium.

Q4 2012 RAJARs: 6Music steals the spotlight

Well, there is no doubt in my view about what the headline is from the latest RAJARs.  6Music is definitely a growing station.  The station reached almost 1.9 million listeners, a record breaking performance, especially when you consider it broadcasts only on digital radio.  The performance can really be put down to things, having the right presenters in the right slots, and the intelligent approach to music that 6Music uses.  Many other stations could learn a lot from 6Music and allow a few tracks on the playlists that are less familiar, but often just as good as the more familiar ones.

On the local side, the spotlight really falls on 3 stations.  Radio Exe, who reduced their TSA by over 100,000; Palm FM, and Radio Plymouth, who recieved their first official ratings in this quarter.  All of these stations and Pirate FM as well, are up against the newly formed monolith that is Heart South West, who are reporting combined numbers for the first time rather than separate numbers for Cornwall and Devon.

Heart South West reported 394,000 listeners.  The best we can tell, that is actually an increase on the quarter and a small increase on the year.  The station was listened to for 8.1 hours per listener per week, whihc is a reasonable figure.  So how do their competition measure up?

Let's start with Radio Exe, whose TSA figure is basically now the city of Exeter and not a lot more.  The reach does not look good at just 21,000 listeners, down from 25,000 the previous quarter.  However, in the smaller TSA, that now represents 11% of the TSA, rather than the 9% or so last quarter.  Average Hours per week went up rto 8.3 from 7.4, but that was not enough to stop the total hours dropping from 183k to 176k.  This does mean that in the smaller TSA, the share went up to 4% from 2.8%.  A lot of this feels like cosmetic changes really rather than anything solid. 

However, at the beginning of 2013, they made some fairly significant changes to their schedule.  Matt Young left the station, and Chris Dinnis took over a shortened drivetime from 2pm til 6pm.  Nino Ferreto, who at one time had been the breakfast presenter on Radio Exe in it's previous identity of Exeter FM, has come back and taken over the daytime slot between 10am and 2pm.  Ashley Geary's Live and Local expands and becomes a regular show every weeknight between 6pm and 8pm.  Kellow's Bootlaces and The Pow Wow, two shows about Exeter's local football and rugby teams take the 8pm slots for an hour on Mondays and Thursdays respectively, with Gary King's Totally 90s getting an airing on Fridays at 8pm.  Radio Exe is obviously making a play at being the home of local music and sport, though that seems a little strange when the saturday afternoon show, when both local teams are in action, is not particularly sport focused.  On the local music side, they are in direct competition there with local community radio station Phonic FM, which has actually been around longer than Radio Exe, by all of 3 days.  It will be interesting to see if Radio Exe's strategy actually pays off for them.  The next set of RAJARs for them will be very important, as it will be the first test of how the revised schedule is actually working for them.

For Palm FM, the problem was much simpler in understanding, stop a downward trend that had been developing over the past 18 months or so, and it looks like they might have done that.  37,000 listeners is up 3,000 on the quarter and level for the year, so it looks like some stability may have returned to Palm FM.  Or has it?  The share and hours figures don't read as well as the reach figure does.  The share has dropped to 4.7%, the lowest level since 2008, and way down from a peak of 7.2% in Q4 2010.  At only 7 hours per listener per week, the total hours figure has dropped to 261k, the lowest level since 2009 and down from the peak of 340k in Q3 2010. 

Much like Radio Exe, Palm FM has also made some changes in 2013, with John Hogarth leaving the role of Programme Controller to concentrate on Breakfast, and Jon White, formerly Radio Plymouth's Breakfast Show host, replacing Hogie as Programme Controller and also replacing Dave Gould as host of the Interactive Afternoon.  Dave Gould also seems to have left Palm FM, as Allen Fleckney has taken over Dave's old Sunday Afternoon slot.  Again, much like Radio Exe, the Q1 2013 numbers will be very interesting to watch. 

For Radio Plymouth, the problem has been not knowing how many people were listening.  Now, with their first official RAJARs, they know.  37,000 listeners, same number as Palm FM.  7.3 hours per listener per week, 271k total hours and a 4.9% share are respectable numbers and a good starting point.  However, these numbers were during Jon White's time on the Breakfast show.  Jon is now Palm FM Programme Controller, so Chris Batchelor has taken over the Breakfast show, and it will be interesting to see whether the movement in the numbers in Q1 2013 will be up or down. 

For Pirate FM, the last quarter saw a big drop in reach down to 153,000 and a very low 11.8% share, their worst performance that I can verify going back to 1999.  Total Hours dropped below 1.5 million, the worst performance since Q4 2008.  Radio Cornwall saw a small drop down to 152,000 listeners and 16.1% share, down from 154,000 and 16.3% respectively, whilst Radio Devon recovered some ground, rising to 225,000 listeners and 10% share, from 203,000 listeners and 8.9% share.  But all these stations have some serious opposition already from community radio stations, and in 2013, there will be many more launches across Cornwall and Devon, meaning that more stations will be competing for listeners attention. 

In Cornwall, there's already Radio Scilly, The Source FM and Radio St Austell Bay broadcasting on FM, with Penwith Radio, Redruth Radio, CHBN Radio and The Hub all due to launch this year.  In Devon, the competition from community radio already exists with Soundart Radio in Totnes and Phonic FM in Exeter on FM, and The Voice, already broadcasting across North Devon, Exeter and Torbay on DAB, even though the editorial area is only North Devon.  The Voice are due to add FM distribution in North Devon this year, and will be joined by Bay FM in Exmouth, Plymouth Community Radio,  Q-mmunity Radio in Crediton and Totnes FM in Totnes.  All these stations are taking small chunks of the audience now, and these chunks are getting slowly bigger, and soon there will be more chunks being taken out of the audience pie.  It will be interesting to see just how the more established stations respond.

US Election Analysis and Coverage.

This election cycle in the US has been the most divided and one of the closest in recent memory, certainly the closest since 2000.  But an improving economy and the most unwelcome of October surprises in Hurricane Sandy, handled brilliantly by President Obama, may have swung the election away from Mitt Romney.  Obama had the easier path to 270 anyway this year, and Mitt Romney looks like he has had just too much to do to turn it round.

However, don't expect the declaration of the winner to be made by 11pm ET / 4am GMT.  This will be a lot closer than the 365 to 173 electoral college votes that we saw in 2008.  Indeed, it's quite possible that Mitt Romney may get more votes overall, but lose the election due to the particular quirks of the US election system.  I am fully expecting the declaration of the winner, to come after Midnight ET, maybe closer to 1am ET.

However, just as interesting as the final result, is just how many people will vote for the third party candidates, as two debates featuring only the 3rd party candidates have aired or are about to air on RT America, one of those debates was actually produced by online TV operation Ora TV with Larry King, former CNN host moderating.  RT America can be seen by over 50 million people in the US, which is still far less than CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, who can all be seen by at least 200 million people, but still means that candidates that have not been seen on more mainstream media outlets, have gotten more exposure this time around than in previous years.

Also, likely to possibly change things around a bit this year, is the Occupy movement, which the right wing media have done their best to downplay or ignore, calling it a spent force or a dead movement.  Now, by contrast, nobody has refered to the Tea Party movement on the Republican side as a spent force, which says to me that the Republicans are genuinely scared of how the Occupy movement could have a major impact on the political scene, especially after the movement changed the discussion framework of the debate on government spending in the US in 2011. 

Another factor that could be an issue is Roseanne Barr.  Whilst the actress and comedienne was unsuccessful in getting nominated for the Green Party, she has used her twitter feed to actively campaign on Green Party issues, to her over 174,000 followers.  It does mean that we are in for a much more interesting time in this election cycle, rather than just who's gonna win.  With Ron Paul backing Gary Johnson, the Libertarian party candidate, it will mean that there are more stories in this election than in 2008.  The only story in 2008, was how much Barack Obama would win by, it was that obvious. 

There will be a lot of coverage of course, on TV and radio, across the world, as this story has global impact.  In the UK, the BBC will have coverage on both radio and television.  Radio 5 Live will start the ball rolling at 10pm GMT / 5pm ET, with Richard Bacon hosting coverage for 8 hours, with 5 Live Breakfast taking over at 6am.  Radio 4 will also have coverage, anchored by James Naughtie and Bridget Kendall, until 6am when the Today programme will continue the coverage.  BBC1 and BBC News Channel will have coverage starting at 11.35pm, and continuing into Breakfast.  Outside of the BBC, ITV is anchoring its own coverage also starting at 11.35pm and going on into Daybreak.  Commercial radio however, doesn't seem to be covering it outside of news bulletins.  LBC, the UK's only news/talk station, has no speciall coverage planned as I write this, although I expect the overnight hosts will talk about it, with a full roundup expected in The Morning News with Susan Bookbinder at 6.30am.

Satellite viewers can expect to find a lot of coverage.  One of the more unexpected sources this time is PBS America, who are airing the live PBS NewsHour coverage from Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff, starting at 11pm GMT and going on until at least 5am.  Sky News are starting their coverage at 10.30pm, and going on until 9am.  Bloomberg's coverage starts at Midnight and runs until 5am.  CNBC is providing their own coverage after the live NBC Nightly News at 11.30pm, and the coverage goes on until 7am.  Al Jazeera's coverage runs from 9pm to 7am, whilst FOX News Channel's coverage starts at 11pm and goes on until 10am.  But CNN International take the award for the most coverage, starting off at 11am, including a special hour long edition of Amanpour at 8pm, switching to a simulcast of CNN USA at 9pm until 7am, when they resume coverage until 3pm, when they switch to a modified normal schedule, with an additional hour of International Desk at 5pm.  Although Piers Morgan Tonight is scheduled for 11pm, I expect that to be replaced with an edition of World Report from Hong Kong.

Over in Ireland, TV coverage is the order of the night, as radio seems to be giving live overnight coverage a wide berth.  Neither RTE Radio 1 nor NewsTalk have any scheduled coverage outside of daytime and news bulletins.  NewsTalk's George Hook is presenting his drivetime programme, The Right Hook, from America all week, but there is no overnight coverage scheduled.  On television RTE 1 has their own anchored coverage from 11.35pm until 3am, then they join CBS News for their coverage at 3am, switch to EuroNews at 7am, before RTE return to their own anchored coverage at 8am until 9.40am.

TV3 on the other hand, are doing something weird.  Undoubtedly, the story will feature in the regularly scheduled Tonight with Vincent Brown at 11pm.  TV3 will join CNN's live coverage at 2am until Ireland AM starts at 7am.  However, betweem Midnight and 2am, TV3 are showing Psychic Readings Live.  I don't need to be psychic to know that TV3 will basically have given RTE the ratings victory in that timeslot.  Also, Ireland AM is not known for its news coverage, so that could be an interesting programme.

As we get closer to Election Day in the US, I will be finding out more about how other broadcasters around the world will be covering the story, and I will update the blog with those details as I find them.  Also, if I get any word on internet streams of coverage, and I expect there to be such streams from Politico and Democracy Now amongst others, then I'll bring that information to you as well.  On the night, I myself will be live tweeting on @cityprod.  It should be a fascinating night.

Viewpoint - The UK Spending Review, BBC & S4C.

Election Night on Television & Radio

The old saying goes "the revolution will be televised", and that most certainly is the case here. The UK General Election will definitely be televised like never before.

We'll deal with the usual suspects later, but first a quick look at what other channels are doing.

In Ireland, RTE1 will have coverage of the election, starting at 11.45 pm. Coverage continues until 4am, and then coverage picks up again at 8am for a short 75 minute update.

Overseas, BBC World will have live coverage from 2100 GMT, that's 2200 UK, and 2300 CET. Coverage continues until 6am.

s4C will also have live coverage, produced by BBC Wales, in the Welsh language, starting at 10pm UK and continuing until 6am.

Now onto the main suspects. BBC1 England, BBC2 Wales, BBC2 Scotland, BBC2 Northern Ireland, and the BBC News Channel are simulcating the main election programme from London, presented by David Dimbleby from 9.55pm. There is continuous coverage until 2pm on Friday, when BBC1 and the BBC News Channel have a delayed BBC News at One. The entire election schedule from 9.55pm Thursday to 2pm Friday is being simulcast in HD live on BBC HD.

For the first time, BBC1 Northern Ireland has its own Election Night programme, also starting at 9.55pm, going on until 6am. The reason for this is simple. In previous elections, Northern Ireland constituencies didn't start their counts until the next morning. This often meant that results didn't come in until about 4pm the next day. This time, counts will begin as soon as the polls close.

BBC1 Wales will have their own election night programme, hosted by Huw Edwards, again starting at 9.55pm and finishing at 6am. BBC1 Scotland's Election night programme also airs from 9.55pm to 6am, and is being simulcast nationwide on BBC Parliament. All the BBC1 regions will be back together at 6am for continuing coverage. The BBC2 nations return to normal BBC2 programmes at 6am as well.

ITV1 is providing a serious amount of election coverage as well. Their Election Night programme from ITN also begins at 9.55pm and will continue until 6am. GMTV takes over coverage, until 9.25am when ITN returns with another hour of election coverage until normal service resumes with This Morning at 10.30am.

Sky News has election coverage all through Thursday, with their results programme kicking off at 9pm, and continuing all the way until 5pm Friday.

At the moment, we do not yet know what the other major international news channels are doing for this. Al Jazeera, CNNI, EuroNews and many others haven't released any information yet. It would be strange for CNNI not to be covering it in depth as they have covered all the debates so far. They have also done Election Night programmes in previous election years live from London. As soon as I know more, I'll update you.

On radio, Radio 4 and Radio 5 Live have separate Election Night programmes of their own, both beginning at 10pm. Radio 4's coverage until the end of Today at 9am, whilst Radio 5 Live continues their coverage until 7pm Friday night. BBC Local Radio stations will have their own election specials airing overnight on Thursday. Most will begin at 10pm and finish around 5am or 6am. Some like BBC Radio Solent are finishing at 3am.

As for commercial radio, well, Absolute Radio will have an Election Party from 11pm to 6am. Some local stations may well provide coverage. Certainly in my local area, I remember Pirate FM providing coverage overnight, mixed with music.

BBC World Service is also providing continuous news coverage during the results process. The coverage begins at 9pm UK with Newshour, continues at 10pm with an Election Special, then various news programmes continue the coverage from 5am to 3pm. Listeners in the UK will be able to hear the coverage on DAB digital radio.

Viewpoint – John Terry’s sacking

New BBC site: Democracy Live

The BBC has launched a new site as part of BBC News.  It’s called Democracy  Live and presents live coverage of the parliaments in Westmister, Holyrood and Brussels, and the assemblies at Stormont and Cardiff Bay.

Democracy Live also presents recorded coverage of every chamber, committee room and the Westminster Hall as well.

New Doctor Who Logo!

It may be that if you’re outside the UK, the video may not work.  If you want to see the new logo, click here.

Murdoch claims independent journalism threatened by "dominant" BBC.

So James Murdoch, the head of NewsCorp in Europe, says a dominant BBC damages independent journalism in the UK.

The hypocrisy of that statement is positively drooling out of his mouth even as he says it.

NewsCorp has never been interested in independent journalism. All they are interested in is making sure that the conservative viewpoint is the dominant viewpoint. All other viewpoints are to be disparaged, dismissed, and generally made fun of. To them, there is only one truth, the one they manufacture to fit their own prejudices, whether it happens to fit the facts or not.

It gets better! Giving the MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival, he said "The expansion of state-sponsored journalism is a threat to the plurality and independence of news provision."

He said this with no sense of being a hypocrite, no sense of irony, seemingly no sense of anything. If he had, he wouldn't have said what he said.

News provision has been dominated by conservative media over the years, especially in newspapers. UK newspapers are predominantly conservative in political bias, and that bias has been getting steadily more pronounced over the years, especially since the 1990s.

Broadcast news has less choice, with BBC, Sky and ITN basically dominating the market, and no other provider really stepping up to the plate since the demise of BSB back in 1990.

NewsCorp really wants to dominate news provision over here, in the way that FOX News Channel dominates cable news in the US. They see the BBC as a barrier to that kind of dominance, a barrier that doesn't exist in the same way in the US.

There's another fact that renders his statement factually incorrect. You're reading it. A blog. There are millions of them, across the world. There is also Twitter, which I consider to be the digest version of the blog. Tweets of no more than 140 characters, meaning you have to be very concise with your text.

If I were to tweet this, it would come out something like "Murdoch says BBC threatens independent journalism. Massive hypocrisy, blogs and tweets are the new independent journalism." That comes out at 123 characters. You'd be surprised what you can say in 140 characters or less.

Blogs and tweets are the new independent journalism that anyone can do, and best of all, anyone can read you. My own blogs and tweets have been followed and read by state governments, multinational companies, broadcasters, and politicians. I can't pretend that I am a major influence, but it is fascinating to know these people are interested enough in what you write to read it.

So you see, it just goes to prove that James Murdoch's statement was not only factually wrong, but way behind the times. Sky is not the new kid on the block anymore. There are media moguls a plenty out there on the web, and some of them may well be the next Rupert Murdoch in the next 10-20 years.

Verity Lambert 1935-2007

Verity Lambert is best known to those of us who follow the media and media history as the original producer of Doctor Who from 1963 onwards. But she started her career at Granada, then went to ABC before joining the BBC in 1963.

She later produced for London Weekend Television before becoming Head of Drama at ABC's successor, Thames Television. 1985 saw her creating her own company, Cinema Verity.

But to all Doctor Who fans, and to a lot of people around the world, she will be seen as the original producer of Doctor Who. In fact, in the recent revivial series, in an episode called Human Nature, the Doctor, under his human name of John Smith, refered to his parents by name. Sydney and Verity. She will forever be the mother who gave birth to Doctor Who, and steered it through it's early years becoming a very popular and successful science fiction drama series.

Iranian International News Channel highlights story about Impeaching President Bush. Surprised?

Well,I can honestly say I'm not surprised about the decision by Press TV to highlight this story on their front page.

It's well known that George W Bush is not exactly the most popular US President in the world at large, except of course to American conservatives and Republicans. But remember this is a state-funded media organisation, much like the BBC and Voice Of America. The head of Press TV claims that they maintain editorial independence from the government, though this is disputed.

Whether they are independent or not, ultimately how they will be judged is on the stories they cover and how they cover them.

Doctor Who rumour shows newspapers struggling for scoops

ITN is reporting that the BBC is denying rumours Doctor Who will be axed after 4 seasons. The basis for this specualtion is a story in a newspaper that Russell T Davies wants to free up time for other projects.

Well, there's no reason why another executive producer with a vision for the show couldn't be brought in to guide the show on past season 5. In the original run of the show, producers seemed to change every 2 or 3 years, until John Nathan Turner took over and basically ran the show for 9 years til it was put on it's "extended hiatus", which lasted until 2005,minus one made for TV movie in 1996.

This is the usual tabloid way of hyping something to make it successful, which Doctor Who has become, and then taking pot shots at it until they make it fall. I'm sure I'm not the only person who dislikes this tabloid obsession with building people and things up to knock them down when they get bored with them, which they seem to do incredibly quickly.

Alan Johnston's 45th Birthday

You may have noticed that I have added a button on the blog sidebar to show my support for Alan Johnston, the BBC correspondent for Gaza who was kidnapped on 12th March 2007.

Today is Alan Johnston's 45th brithday. Like so many other journalists around the world, I wish to add my own birthday greetings to the many that are being expressed today.

Alan, you will not know me. We have never met face to face. But with your reports from Gaza, I let you into my living room as a trusted source of reliable information. I would love to see you back in my living room again, seeing you bring the facts from Gaza to us all around the world.

From one journalist to another, Happy Birthday, and may your god speed you home.

Watching the news on the net.

So, the recent trend for news channels to broadcast on the net continues. The most recent addition is BBC News 24, which can now be watched live on the net. My only concern is that the bandwidth stream being allocated for both video and audio is only 34kbps!

When we have broadband services that start at 2mbps, going up to around 16mbps, a 34kbps stream seems to be either a cost cutting measure, or just plain silly. 34kbps videos are not very watchable and the audio is pretty crappy. Give it at least 100kbps. The video would be better but certainly not special, but it would be at least watchable, and it would be possible to at least listen to it, if you happened to be doing something else.

At least RTE give their live news video at least 225kbps!

Biased News on NPR? I don't think so!

There is a blog which purports to monitor "...rightwing, pro-government and corporate bias..." on the programming of National Public Radio News, called NPR Check. The reality is that this is a blogger that is looking for a news service to be explicitly liberal, in the same way that Fox News Channel is explicitly conservative.

Thankfully, for people like me who are fed up with biased news, from any source, liberal or conservative, NPR News is not biased, but sticks very closely to just reporting the facts. I have listened regularly to NPR's top shows, Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and I find it to be very fair, airing reporting that is based exclusively on fact rather than even the slightest agenda.

Most blogs which attack the public service broadcasters (NPR, PBS, BBC, CBC, RTE, ABC Australia etc) are run by bloggers with a conservative political bent. This one is decidedly liberal, proving that the anti-public service broadcasting community comes from all sides and colours of the political spectrum.

For crying out loud, people STOP TRYING TO FORCE EVERY NEWS ORGANISATION TO MATCH YOUR POLITICAL BENT! If you want BIASED news, there are plenty of newspapers and websites out there with enough bias to fill the Pacific Ocean!!!

Let those of us who would actually PREFER some unbiased news, some sources like the BBC, NPR, RTE etc.

Editorialising The News.

I would call myself something of a news junkie. I like to tune in to various news sources to get different perspectives on the news. This is a way of really getting a purer, more factual perspective on the news.

But it is also a way of learning which news sources you can trust, and which ones try to influence your opinions. The Sun, like most if not all newspapers, tries to influence your thoughts. Take the story of the shootings at Virginia Tech University. When the student Cho Seung-hui sent his video package to NBC News in New York between the shootings, The Sun reported it this way...

"...MASSACRE madman Cho Seung-Hui sent a chilling message to TV chiefs after slaying his first two victims."

Now, let me highlight in red, the words that are not necessary to tell the story.

"...MASSACRE madman Cho Seung-Hui sent a chilling message to TV chiefs after slaying his first two victims."

Now, if you read ONLY the light coloured words, the story still makes sense, but is nowhere near as dramatic, and is not nearly as full of hyperbole. The full version reads like an old fashioned newspaper hack's writing style. Now contrast this to the BBC's reporting of the same story.

"...The student who shot dead at least 30 people at Virginia Tech sent a package to the US TV network NBC News on the day of the shootings, police said."

Now, on that, there is one piece that stands out to me as being wrong and that is having the words "...police said..." at the end of the sentence, rather than at the beginning. It reads better the other way, but apart from that, there is almost nothing there in that sentence that doesn't need to be there to tell the story.

So, why do newspaper articles add all these extra words? Mainly it's to reinforce an editorial standpoint on the story. They really want you to think a certain way, they want to create a certain political atmosphere.

Another good example of this was the way the printed media created a political atmosphere, was when the sailors and marines who had been captured by Iran came home, they were allowed to sell their stories by the Ministry of Defence.

Those newspapers who didn't manage to get a story from the former captives, criticised the papers that did. Now this in itself was not unusual, this happens every time. But there was a greater backlash, because other elements of the media, including broadcasters and bloggers, got in on the act as well. The next day, the newspapers that had taken stories from the marines, got in on the same act as the others!

Yet none of them considered that Iran had started this with the videos they had put out showing the sailors and marines 'confessing their guilt'. The Ministry of Defence was always going to allow the sailors and marines to tell their story and always looked like it would, just this once, allow the stories to be sold to newspapers, in order to counter the propoganda being put out by Iran.

I seem to be the only person who thought that this was not a great idea, but had to be done. Everybody else I spoke to, took the critical line that the media portrayed.

In the past few years, a lot of the mainstream media, and a number of bloggers, have criticised Arabic 24 hour news channel Al-Jazeera, for showing the videos that some suicide bombers have sent to them. Newshounds, the anti-Fox News website, made a great point recently about how much the mainstream media in the US had criticised Al-Jazeera for doing what NBC had done on their "NBC Nightly News" programme on Wednesday 18th April 2007.

The media can be that hypocritical sometimes. As bloggers, some of us too have been hypocritical, especially those who promote a political viewpoint. I like to keep my views consistent, and when my views change, I will need to be able to communicate to you, the reader, why my views have changed. I will aim to report, as much as I editorialise, and I hope that I can make a clear link between the facts, and my editorial opinion.

ITV in crisis

ITV has been facing up to some major problems recently, and arguably, it has not been coping very well with them. In what has been a tough time for the commercial broadcaster, the ITV companies have faced major problems with ITV Digital, falling revenues from advertising, falling audience figures with BBC1 and Multi-channel TV benefiting the most and a greater than average number of new programme failures, including some very high profile ones such as Shafted. The question is, what happened to ITV to allow it to fall so far?

There are a number of potential reasons why ITV’s fall has been so bad. One potential reason can be traced all the way back to the creation of Independent Television back in 1954. Originally, the Independent Television Authority was supposed to have created 2 commercial networks, each with additional licenced programme providers. But it ended up being only one commercial network, and no additional programme providers, which made things difficult for Associated Rediffusion and ATV London in the initial months of Independent Television. These days, such an arrangement with additional programme providers licenced for ITV would undoubtedly have seen more of the old franchisees become production companies, and also some good companies that never quite made it to being franchise holders, providing programming. It would also make for a more competitive ITV in terms of programming.

Another potential reason why ITV is in possible crisis goes back to the 1990 Broadcasting Act. In the act, it allowed the ITV companies to merge with each other, and potentially be bought by other companies too. Why was this a bad thing? Well, ironically for the same reason that lack of additional licenced programme providers was a bad thing. Instead of having a competitive ITV with 15 companies and the threat of losing their franchise if they didn’t perform up to scratch, you now have just 5 companies, who know their licences are pretty safe, and therefore less competitive, less challenging and less satisfying in terms of programming.

Another potential reason lies in what has been recently a major situation in broadcasting terms, and that is the situation between ITV and Sky. In 1998, ITV decided not to launch on Sky Digital, despite the fact that BBC1, BBC2, Channel 4 and Channel 5 were all launching on both Sky Digital and On Digital. On Digital, nowadays know as ITV Digital, is owned by Carlton and Granada, the two biggest ITV companies. Granada have some history with Sky as Granada was involved in the British Satellite Broadcasting venture of 1990, which ended with BSB merging with Sky. Carlton had channels of its own that it didn’t want on Sky, and had previously restricted them to just Cable. Carlton and Granada felt that On Digital needed an advantage over Sky Digital, and they felt that ITV would give them that advantage. So ITV refused to launch on Sky Digital, and also refused to launch ITV2 on Sky Digital. This move was to prove costly in financial terms with many millions of pounds of advertising revenue missed because of this one move. ITV1 and ITV2 were to launch in 2001 on Sky Digital, but the damage had been done. The move had cost them advertising revenue, and it had cost them viewers too, and the longer they stayed off Sky Digital, the more it was going to cost them in terms of viewers and advertising revenue. So, they finally put up and launched on Sky Digital.

Another potential reason lies in the fact that On/ITV Digital always looked to compete with Sky Digital. Alongside the fact that ITV had been having something of a tiff with Sky for many years, going back to the lack of agreement between Sky News and ITN, over ITN acting as programme producer for Sky News, in 1988, and continuing through Sky’s failed attempts to replace ITN as ITV’s news provider, when you put all that together, you see ITV trying to compete with Sky, one by not providing ITV and ITV2 on Sky Digital, also by trying to use ITV’s advantage as a terrestrial broadcaster to persuade people to go to On Digital, owned of course by two of the biggest ITV companies. Put that very complicated mix together, and what do you have? You have a channel provider on Digital Terrestrial, trying to compete with a channel provider on Digital Satellite, where really they shouldn’t be competing at all. On Digital was the only licenced digital pay-TV provider for Digital Terrestrial, and Sky Digital was the only digital satellite pay-TV provider. In theory, they shouldn’t have been competing with each other as they were two different markets. However, in practice, people were comparing the Sky/On situation to the Sky/BSB situation of 1990, long before either side were actually transmitting digital programmes, and this wasn’t helped by On Digital themselves, whose advertising was at least initially quite blatantly stating their competitive agenda.

Whichever reason it was, and whichever way you look at it, it comes down to competition. Sky had had no real competition in the Multi-channel arena after their merger with BSB, and ITV in itself was less competitive because the number of ITV companies had dropped from 15 to 5, and because the franchises were no longer being seen as under threat every whit and while, so there was no pressure on ITV to perform. Now ITV is in this situation. To this writer, it looks like a crisis, a crisis of ITV’s own making. They wanted the ability to merge stations, to eventually become 1 giant national ITV. They wanted the franchises to be easier to renew, therefore creating less pressure, and supposedly more time for increased investment. They wanted the greener, less regulated grass on the other side of the fence. Now they’re there, they are finding it’s leaving a foul taste in their mouths, but instead of backtracking, ITV seek to blame the BBC and Sky for their own problems. There’s an old saying. It says, “You reap what you sow”.

So, how can ITV get themselves out of this predicament? Well, the only way they can do it is to go back to being more regulated, and back to being a commercially funded, not commercially driven, public service broadcaster. They must waste less money on unnecessarily extravagant set designs, cut down the amount that is just given away to shareholders, and start re-investing in the people who really count, the viewers.

Regional Rollercoaster

Out of all the channels that currently exist, only 3 channels provide a terrestrial regional service to the English regions, BBC-1, BBC-2 and ITV. Every other service available is national, pan-European or even international in focus.

So why are there so few regional services? The short answer is money. To provide a basic regional service, for instance to the West, South, East, Midlands, North, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, you have to find eight new locations for studios. To run the entire service from your broadcast headquarters, at least eight new transmission suites need to be built and suddenly we're talking hundreds of millions of pounds. Currently only Sky could even consider something like that.

The BBC offer a 14-region terrestrial service, covering the South West, West, South, South East, East, East Midlands, West Midlands, North West, North, North East and Cumbria, Channel Islands, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, and are in the process of carving a 15th region out of the South East for London. A comprehensive service like this is the most expensive route to take, with the pick of the regional bunch, ITV, having 27 regional divisions operated by 15 licensees in 14 regions. A 27-region service requires 27 transmission suites, at a time where ITV tries to consolidate into a single company.

Even without consolidation, regional output has already suffered. The BBC used to produce some great regional feature programming, including "Floyd on Food" and "Secret Nature", both from the Southwest. The BBC picked up these shows nationally as well as many other programmes from the regions. The three main regional production centres for the network, Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester, specialise in certain types of productions. The only things the individual regions produce are local news, weekly topical news documentaries and a regional parliamentary programme. All are news based with no feature-based material at all - no fun stuff.

You might have expected ITV to pick up the slack here but the picture is similarly bleak. For instance, Westward and TSW had been great providers of regional programming, some of it being shown on the network. Successor company Westcountry, however, have produced only news and factual programming, with a tiny amount of entertainment-related material produced by local independents. Even after Carlton rebranded Westcountry, things did not really improved. Although the "Carlton Production" slide is seen a lot, the great majority of these productions are from London and the Midlands.

So regional programming has already suffered on television, and it looks like it will continue to suffer under a single ITV company coupled with light-touch regulation. Because being regional eats up money and profits, expect to see even less in the future.