Plans for reduced public service role are good news for ITV Despite much talk of 'radical' solutions being required for the "digital age" - whatever that is, although for the majority of people it just means more repeats, woefully produced...
Posts from July 2008
Easy options
Five months and counting
Whilst flicking through the channels this evening I noticed that QVC has already started to sell Christmas decorations. In July....
Slowly does it
ukfree.tv: Why Freesat did not launch with 230 channels At the moment this story has only appeared on one website as well as being fairly one-sided (there's no rebuttal from Sky), so bear this in mind when considering its overall...
The Story of the Monkey and the Olympics
If you haven't seen the BBC's Olympic monkey, then it's time to head over to the BBC website now.
Demand Five - another case of online discrimination
Once again, a sizeable proportion of online users are being discriminated against by on-demand programme providers: this time by Five's TV-on-demand service Demand Five. If they were visually impaired, for example, this discrimination would probably be illegal - but...
Pay-per-PSB? Not as a package
COO of BSkyB, Mike Darcey, writing in the Royal Television Society journal Television (Vol. 45:6, July 2008 p12), reckons Ofcom – and many of the rest of us – are all asking the wrong question about the future of Public...
Lies, statistics, and ITV viewing figures
Ofcom chairman disputes BBC's 'unique link' with licence fee payers There's more than a hint of trying to defend the indefensible when Ofcom chairman David Currie yet again attempts to weaken the connection between the licence fee and the BBC,...
The rules have changed
The "what's on" wars: BBC Local vs commercial radio Now is not a good time to be involved in commercial UK radio, it seems. Advertisers are trimming their marketing budgets in anticipation of a possible economic recession, and this has...
Scaling down
The Cambs Times: Fen Radio expected to close by the end of July As of today this story may not be widely reported, but it seems that radio group UKRD is on the verge of handing back a second local...
O2 and iPhone 3G: Where 'first come first served' is a lie
Of course, as everyone might expect, there was enormous demand for the iPhone 3G when it came out earlier in the week: it's obviously an excellent product with several of the features that people wanted added to the new...
ITV regional cutbacks: devil in the details.
Broadcast Now reports that the director of ITV Regions, Michael Jeremy, has sent a letter to all staff in the regions detailing the timetable for redundancies and their plans for creating their new vision of regional ITV. I say this...
Role reversal
Channel 4 ponders move into regional news as ITV retreats Currently ITV plc has a big dilemma on its hands. Its share price is several times lower than it was three years ago, and the current economic situation means that...
Getting the balance right
Bannister says anti-fakery regulations are damaging BBC output It may be true that after the recent premium rate interactivity scandals, both television and radio have become rather more bureaucratic as a result, with more form-filling and back watching to be...
