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.

Anchor attacked on More 4 News

I didn’t see this happen live, but only just found out about it.  ITN’s Alex Thompson, who is currently the main anchor of More4 News, the sister programme to Channel 4 News, and his cameraman, are interrupted by a protestor.  The result is a scuffle, and the studio anchor, who isn’t familiar to me, has to take the lead in to the next report.

Have to say, the protestor is a bloody idiot for thinking he could interrupt something like this and get away with it, and I have to say to those who think that this was an arranged act, to stop being so cynical about news broadcasting.  You don’t arrange for these kinds of interruptions.  Ever.

Mumbai attacks: More media coverage

Unsurprisingly, the continuing developments in Mumbai dominate the news, though most channels currently are covering other stories as well. Even GMTV seems to have taken on a more sombre tone this morning with the story getting more coverage than most international stories do. There is a ticker running this morning with continual information about this one story. I don't see much GMTV normally, but I don't remember GMTV running a ticker normally. I could be wrong.

Not surprisingly NDTV 24x7 and most of India's other major news channels are running the story as continual breaking news. CNNIBN is one that does too, and is currently supplying pictures to sister network CNN International, who continue to cover it as breaking news. Star News seems to be one of the few that has switched away from it.

Al Jazeera is majoring on it, with a lot of breaking news coverage but they do attempt to cover over stories as well. Most channels seem to be on normal schedules with the story dominating the news. Fox News Channel is running normal programmes, but with Fox News Alerts replacing ad breaks in some cases. DW-TV is on normal programmes, but the story dominates.

ITN's online channel also leads with the story but continues on it's roughly normal schedule. Press TV from Iran also leads with the story, but also continues to cover other stories. CNBC is also providing some coverage too, using the resources of CNBC TV 18, their Indian partner.

I'll have more on the media coverage of this story, later on.

Carol Barnes 1944-2008

This is a sad day for journalists and news junkies alike. Carol Barnes was a consumate professional newscaster, anchoring all of ITN's main news programmes on ITV, including News At Ten. She also launched Channel 4's first breakfast programme, the Channel 4 Daily. Some video clips for your perusal. First, the first edition of the Channel 4 Daily.



Next, an edition of ITN's News at 5.40, on the day that the 1991 ITV franchise round came to an end, and the fate of 4 of ITV's licencees is revealed.



Rest In Peace, Carol Barnes. You will be much missed.

News Roundup: Tuesday 20th November 2007

Independent Television News: Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, which starred Billie Piper as a high class prostitute, has been nominated for Best Soft Core Production at the UK Adult Film and Television Awards.

Ananova: A Chinese thief, who bought cheap plane tickets then robbed unsuspecting passengers in mid-flight has been arrested.

Channel News Asia: The Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao reiterated in regional talks Tuesday that sanctions would not help reconcilliation efforts in Myanmar/Burma.

Al Jazeera: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is hopeful that a prisoner exchange can be acheived between Columbian leftists and the Colombian Government.

Public Radio International: US polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs has been sentenced to a minimum of 10 years, for forcing a 14 year old girl to marry her cousin.

National Nine News: The Dalai Lama has said that he may appoint a successor or call democratic elections before his death, rather than relying on reincarnation, after recent orders that China must approve Tibet's spiritual leaders.

And Finally...

MSNBC: Two squirrels caused power failures for hundreds of people in Wisconsin.

Setanta Sports News launch date confirmed.

Just a few days ago I reported that Setanta Sports News would be added to the BARB figures on November 29th. Now, Digital Spy are reporting that November 29th has been cofirmed by Setanta and Virgin Media as the official launch date for the ITN-produced station.

The channel promises headlines every 20 minutes and will launch on Virgin Media channel 518 and on free-to-air digital satellite. No idea yet about position on the Sky EPG.

This promises to be a major new addition, and the possibility of this channel coming to Freeview remains very strong in my honest opinion. This is the first new sports news channel since EuroSport 2 replaced EuroSport News on the Sky platform. Contray to popular belief, EuroSport News didn't close, and continues to air in Asia and Australia. Indeed the news broadcasts on EuroSport 2 are simply relayed from EuroSport News, with branding changed as required. Perhaps this might cause EuroSport to reconsider bringing EuroSport News back to the UK and European markets, especially since EuroSport 2 is using less and less news coverage these days and providing more programming of its own.

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.

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.