Now that the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival is over, what can we learn from what happened there, and (perhaps more importantly) did the attendees learn anything from the experience as well?
For starters, Peter Fincham's keynote speech is a curious echo of the last MacTaggart speech made by Charles Allen in 2006 shortly before he left ITV, except that ITV's predicament is if anything several times worse now than what it was two years ago. That 2006 speech also 'brought the house down' (at the time) but we all know what happened next.
Move forward two years and the UK economy (hence ITV's potential ad revenues) appears to be on the brink of recession as well as Google (and other web-based advertising) continuing to eat away at UK television broadcasters' profits. Plus BSkyB's shareholding has blocked a 'sugar daddy' takeover (what was and is the biggest hope for ITV).
One issue is that ITV's programming has barely progressed beyond what it was two years ago - the return of News At Ten was perhaps the bravest move made by Michael Grade, but like the proverbial boy who cried wolf it seems that viewers aren't exactly watching the bulletin in their droves because few people seem to treat ITV seriously any more.
And that's the problem for ITV. Indeed it's the light entertainment (The X-Factor, Britain's Got Talent) that's keeping ITV plc's head above water from a financial perspective but in turn is doing nothing to advance its credibility, and with things like contract rights renewal still in the way it means that ITV still cannot afford to take real risks.
This was strongly alluded to with the pleas made by Peter Fincham earlier during the festival in relation to releasing ITV from its public service commitments, namely if Ofcom were to leave ITV to its own devices we would end up with 'better' programming. (So they honestly want us to believe, despite historical precedents that strongly suggest otherwise.)
However this sentiment not only clashes with Ofcom's historical loosening of ITV's commitments (which have had minimal or no effect in terms of programme quality) as well as the fact that a fair number of people actually enjoyed watching the types of programming that ITV no longer seems willing to produce. (More than they seem to think.)
Not everybody loves The X-Factor, you know.
Don't get me wrong - the issue of contract rights renewal in particular needs resolving as a matter of urgency (Google has no such restrictions for one thing), but nobody in a government currently more concerned with its own survival will have that as a priority issue in their in tray. And ITV still needs some form of regulation just to protect it from itself.
So if the current regulatory system is hobbling ITV close to breaking point, then it's perhaps best to just rip up the old Channel 3 franchise system and start again afresh, maybe implementing a US-style affiliate system with a central sustaining feed (as previously suggested by various people).
But that of course will require a whole new Communications Act, which won't happen until well after the next election, and the commercial sector has spent so much time and effort bashing the BBC in the meantime that the licence fee will probably be reformed/abolished first by central government before ITV's problems are properly attended to.
Such problems will continue to hinder any new owner of ITV plc, and if ITV doesn't step up its own production quota drastically (and soon), then the broadcaster may turn out to be a poisoned chalice for RTL or whoever ends up being brave enough to take on the ITV problem.
These days it seems that the major US networks (apart from Fox of course with its BSkyB connection) are now more interested in the production side of things, with NBC's recent acquisition of Carnival being a pointer to a future where the content providers may take over from broadcasters in order of importance as a result of video-on-demand services.
Except of course when a broadcaster also happens to be known for its own productions, which is where the recent attempts to boost the importance of ITV Productions comes into play, but so far this has had minimal effect (yet another frustration for the current regime at ITV plc) largely due to the aforementioned factors that affect risk-taking.
The problem of course could be that the 'best' solution for rescuing the Channel 3 system may be actively disliked by ITV plc, therefore ITV itself won't campaign for such a solution unless someone else who's hugely influential lobbies Parliament for such a change, or (even less likely) such an idea has managed to independently gain support as a policy.
Therefore it ultimately looks as if ITV is doomed to stumble from one crisis to another in the current uncertain economic climate whilst waiting for a foreign investor to bail out the leaky boat and/or someone in government to actually realise what the problem is as opposed to what various interest groups have been lobbying for over the years.
Which, as we all know, will take quite some time under the current circumstances.
The death of Bill Cotton perhaps signifies a form of closure for an era that arguably represented the pinnacle of BBC light entertainment and may never ever be repeated within our lifetime, especially as the set of circumstances which gave rise to the performers of that era was more or less a one-off.
Modern requirements of target audience box-ticking may conspire against many forms of serious talent development nowadays, and this is all too noticeable in the forms of entertainment that are commissioned for channels with a narrow remit such as BBC Three.
The very tight budget that these channels have doesn't help matters either, especially as traditional large studio-based forms of light entertainment are very costly to produce as opposed to cheap reality TV formats that attract nearly as many viewers if successful. (And there's less to lose as well if they fail for whatever reason.)
Series such as Upstaged on BBC Three may be promoting new talent but it's talent predominantly targeted at or judged by the BBC Three target audience as opposed to a mass audience, which is now primarily left to the likes of Britain's Got Talent which has a fairly narrow set of selection criteria combined with a limited window of opportunity to get noticed.
It is saddening to read reports of auditions for the current crop of reality TV-inspired talent shows where obviously very talented individuals are rejected purely on the grounds that they don't quite fit with the notion of what's required for that particular show, whilst other performers who are clearly not that good get invited back for second auditions.
This is morally degrading for both groups of individuals since the former have to resort to attempting other methods to break into the industry, whilst the latter gain unrealistic expectations of stardom. Of course there's always the likes of YouTube for talent spotting but traditional television is still the only place for ambitious concepts to be realised.
Television may never gain its next Morecambe and Wise until television executives break their continual obsession with giving talentless wanabees their five minutes of fame, but unfortunately the only way that this cycle will be broken is if more emphasis is placed on other forms of talent spotting and promotion.
Yesterday saw the start of two new programmes on the BBC - the wonderful Britain From Above at 9pm on BBC One, which was followed by its companion show, Britain From Above at 10pm on BBC Two.
No that's not a typo - both programmes had exactly the same name, which must surely be a first in companion programme name titling and ends up being rather confusing all round to boot. You can imagine the continuity announcements now.
"On BBC One now, Britain from Above, whilst on BBC Two in sixty minutes, it's Britain from Above".
"And Andrew Marr will be back with more Britain from Above next week at the same time, but on BBC Two now you can see Britain from Above with Andrew Marr."
"Don't forget, we've got Britain from Above in 30 minutes here on BBC Two. No, not that Britain from Above. The other one. The little one. The one where Andrew Marr talks about London's history, rather than the GPS trail of bin wagons. No, we don't think the naming of two different programmes with the same name makes much sense either but I'm sure it seemed a good idea at the time. After all, we regularly show Coast as 10 minute blocks, and Coast as a whole hour long programme don't we?"
So Michael Grade is threatening to hand back ITV plc's Channel 3 regional licences since it's now claimed that under the current setup they are starting to become unworkable, but whether or not this is actually an idle threat remains to be seen as to how important Channel 3 still is to ITV.
It's fair to say that if ITV plc were to carry out the threat of handing back its Channel 3 licences it would make life more uncertain both for itself and for the STV, UTV and Channel licencees that rely on ITV plc's offerings for the bulk of their output. A Channel 3 'vacuum' in England and Wales would have to be quickly filled by someone at short notice.
If the likes of Coronation Street and Emmerdale were to suddenly go walkies from their Channel 3 position then it could theoretically make the digital switchover process far more painless, but it could alienate a fair number of viewers and the government may not relish the prospect of some voters taking out their grievances at the ballot box come the next election.
The main problem still relates to the infamous contract rights renewal deal (conceived by Granada and Carlton's previous management in order to allow the Granada-Carlton merger to take place) that was drawn up with the expectation that it would keep ITV in check as a dominant commercial television player.
Unfortunately this prevents ITV plc from making more money when advertisers are deserting the channel during economic hard times, and BSkyB's shareholding screwed up any quick fix takeover that something like Virgin Media could have performed. But underlying problems would still exist and may have dragged down any potential purchaser.
It's also hard not to ignore the fact that although regional television production may be highly desirable from a public service perspective, it's easy to perceive it as an additional overhead from an accountancy viewpoint - Ofcom seems to concur with at least some of ITV's ongoing desire to cut costs.
However ITV plc's economic crisis is now starting to reach the stage where fundamentals may start to suffer if the underlying problems aren't addressed properly; some of these problems (as well as CRR) predate Michael Grade's appointment, and this certainly helps to complicate matters as to formulating a workable turnaround for the company.
The message from all of this seems to be clear. Michael Grade seems to be trying to use a Channel 3 withdrawal threat as a crowbar in order to try and force the timetable on CRR reform; he's banking on someone at Ofcom being awake enough to realise this, but the problem seems to be that ITV appears to be crying 'wolf' based on its past form.
There's the real danger for Grade that both Ofcom and government ministers will call ITV's bluff on this issue, especially as Channel 4 is somehow still managing to make ends meet despite having fewer viewers (and a stronger public service remit), together with the danger that someone else could still profitably take up the Channel 3 franchises.
Perhaps Michael Grade ought to seriously contemplate other radical measures for ITV plc such as splitting the company into production and broadcast divisions and/or splitting ITV1 away from ITV's other channels, delisting the company from the stock exchange or even the perhaps unthinkable step of handing back selected regional Channel 3 licences.
For one thing, ITV will inevitably have to face up to the fact that the "single ITV experiment" of merging Granada and Carlton under the current terms has ended up being a complete failure because the underlying attitude behind the merger was predominantly financial as opposed to making better television programmes.
The merger resulted in Channel 3's network programmes either staying the same or getting worse, and ITV plc now has virtually all of its eggs in one basket; when that happens you have to be really sure of what you are doing, and commercial considerations have precluded stronger corrective measures in terms of programming output.
Another conclusion we can draw from this ITV1 fiasco is perhaps surprising but encouraging at the same time, namely that UK television viewers appear to be more discerning than what many people within the media industry still give them credit for.
Expensive acquisitions such as Trinny and Susannah (a very high risk move) have failed miserably for ITV because the cheap 'knock off' copies of the BBC's What Not To Wear format shown in peak time were exactly that and many viewers treated them with equal disdain. (The Emperor's New Clothes, perhaps?)
Hence restoring ITV's reputation in terms of programming you can trust has become an even greater uphill struggle - notwithstanding the recent quiz/premium rate fiascos (such as ITV P(l)ay) that have affected everyone - and it's this combined with the aforementioned other factors that conspire against a recovery within a reasonable timescale.
And it's also hard not to conclude that if an ITV takeover goes ahead before specific underlying problems are properly addressed, then ITV1 will just end up with bland identikit programming served up by a disinterested parent company that will continue to struggle within a multichannel environment.
So what's the real reason behind the English Cricket Board moaning about the BBC's refusal to bid for terrestrial TV cricket rights? Perhaps it's because both Channel 4 and Setanta also refused to place bids, which resulted in both Channel Five and BSkyB winning the rights for another four years almost by default.
No resultant bidding war for cricket rights inevitably meant less potential revenue for the English Cricket Board, and both Channel 4 plus Setanta could possibly be excused on financial grounds courtesy of a weakening media economy. Hence the selection of the BBC as a soft target for the ECB's money-making scheme backfiring.
If the English Cricket Board had suddenly become serious about promoting the game to all licence fee payers (as opposed to their previous stance of campaigning against cricket being added to the list of 'protected' sports), they could have separately offered the BBC a low cost deal to show highlights and/or selected matches.
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 reality TV, shopping channels, a few more BBC television channels and the BBC iPlayer - the options for change are still distinctly limited, no matter what politicians like to think.
Unless fundamental issues such as the viability of ITV regional licences as well as contract rights renewal are also addressed, giving ITV more leeway in its regional commitments will only be surface dressing that will also serve to inflame commercial rivals who feel that ITV has a privileged position that needs to be defended.
Contract rights renewal was simply a 'patch' that permitted Carlton and Granada to merge their television operations in order to create ITV plc, which from both public and shareholder perspectives still hasn't been the stellar success that was originally promised, to put it mildly, and most of the sceptics were inevitably proved right in the end.
Indeed the only endgame scenario that hasn't occurred yet is ITV plc falling into the hands of foreign ownership, although economic circumstances are the only thing preventing this from happening at present. Ofcom seems scared of ITV handing back its regional licences, though the exact reasons for this is another matter entirely.
At least this time round there appears to be no empty promises coming from ITV that will be broken at a later date, as was the case with the Carlton-Granada merger that in part promised 'world-class programming' (allegedly) - the concepts of 'carrot' and 'stick' still seems to be strangely absent when it comes to Ofcom and the regulation of Channel 3.
As for the relationship between the licence fee and the BBC together with the potential outcome from the BBC's perspective, some of the blame can be pointed at BBC management for the (attempted) policy decision - does the BBC appear to be badly missing the so-called 'surplus' licence fee cash redirected towards the digital switchover?
There have been no cancelled events, no blank screens and no discernable protest from BBC management or staff in respect of the missing cash; certainly nothing that is or was clearly visible from a public perspective, and no additional clues proffered as to what may have otherwise been done with the missing money.
Giving money to Channel 4 from the licence fee was really the only 'radical' option that Ofcom could come up with that may be deemed somehow as workable, although a much greater test will be whether giving money to Channel 4 in this fashion counts as an illegal public subsidy under European Union rules.
Ofcom must feel that there must be a fair chance of the Channel 4 proposal being workable in some form, so to speak, although there is always the suspicion that these plans represent a last ditch throw of the ideological dice in respect to 'top-slicing' the licence fee.
And of course Ofcom's chairman is about to depart anyway so he will be well out of the picture if/when any final decision on this issue is made.
Because if the Channel 4 subsidy proposal falls through - and it still could - then additional uses for the licence fee in this manner may be impossible. Combine this with additional public money for public service broadcasting being unavailable, then Ofcom definitely appears to have its hands tied when it comes to formulating public service alternatives.
Unless, of course, there are no alternatives at all.
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 accuracy, but it does raise an interesting issue that has received surprisingly little attention within the media: namely why Freesat still has fewer channels than Sky Digital.
Before May of this year, BSkyB had an almost total monopoly in relation to UK satellite television, with the only truly non-Sky alternative being a free-to-air satellite receiver perhaps combined with programme guide information sourced from the internet; a combination never actively marketed and was possibly too technical for the average viewer.
Until of course Freesat came along, which finally introduced an easy non-Sky alternative for satellite television along with a degree of marketing to back it up. This is particularly worrying for Sky even though it has its own Freesat equivalent, since in the minds of many consumers, Sky TV equals pay-TV due to Sky's successful long term marketing.
And given the amount of effort Sky had previously put into derailing Virgin Media's ambitions, which went as far as buying ITV shares in order to prevent a painless takeover by Virgin Media, then you can also bet that Freesat is judged by Sky to be a very serious long term threat to the Sky subscription model.
From BSkyB's perspective there's two things that it can do to reduce the Freesat threat. The obvious approach is to attract consumers into subscriptions that are more trouble than it's worth to cancel, hence the emphasis on Sky+ and "See, Speak, Surf" bundles combining pay-TV with internet and phone calls - cancel one and you have to forego the others.
The Sky+ advantage will be nullified once Freesat boxes with Sky+ equivalent (PVR) functionality appear on the market (before the end of this year, apparently), so that leaves the only other weapon in BSkyB's armoury apart from marketing, namely the possibility of making life as difficult as possible for certain channels who also want to be on Freesat.
Because BSkyB controls both the Sky Digital encryption system and the associated electronic programme guide (EPG), Freesat has to have its own separate independent EPG system, and because the Freesat EPG data has to be part of the channel (why is another issue altogether) then there's another hurdle to be overcome.
For certain channels, if new data is added to a channel that passes through a Sky-controlled part of the transmission chain then it has to be 'approved' by Sky in a process known as 'configuration'. And Sky has placed limits on the number of 'configurations' that it's prepared to make in a particular month.
Of course it's easy to state that this cuts down on the monthly administrative workload for Sky, but it may also be easy to argue that the administrative overhead for Sky should be relatively minimal and the actual configuration process ought to take seconds as opposed to months.
It will be very interesting to see what Ofcom's response will be to these accusations of Sky deliberately slowing down the approval process in order to restrict the number of channels available on Freesat in the short term, especially given Ofcom's recent rulings in relation to speeding up the transfer of mobile phone numbers from one network to another.
And naturally there's another course of action that could be taken via the European Commission, but that could take years as opposed to months to resolve which will do nothing to speed up the current approval process bottleneck, although BSkyB could eventually be hit with a large fine for anti-competitive practices as a result.
If you haven't seen the BBC's Olympic monkey, then it's time to head over to the BBC website now.
The music and animation - which will get their TV premiere on BBC One at 7:30pm on Thursday 24 July - were created by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, and will form part of the BBC's presentation of the Olympics.
Inevitably there will be some differing opinions on the package, and already there are some who think it's an outstanding piece of work and a credit to the people who designed and commissioned it, and of course, those who think that the BBC should just shove a piece of cardboard with "The Olympics" scrawled on it in biro instead...
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 in this case a great many more people are affected.
On the Demand Five sub-site, in the Accessibility section, the company states: "Five.tv and Demand Five are committed to making output as accessible as possible to all users..."
Yet this is patently not the case. Demand Five doesn't support Macintosh users - a sizeable and growing proportion of the on-line community.
The fact is, there are probably four times as many UK Macintosh users on the web as there are visually impaired internet users in the UK. Yet Demand Five wants to be "as accessible as possible" to the latter while neglecting the former, much larger group.
Current statistics suggest that 1 in 60 UK residents are blind or visually impaired. Research further indicates that over 50 per cent of visually impaired people regard the Internet as an important communication tool, so we can assume that 500,000 visually impaired people in the UK will be potentially interested in viewing Demand Five's output. This is inflating the figure by an unknown amount, because we do not know that every visually impaired person who thinks the Net is important actually has access.
By contrast, at the turn of this year, Macintosh-based users topped 8% of all web users in statistics (a number that may underestimate Macintosh usage). Now, 61% (end 2007) of households in the UK have internet access, and we can assume that they use the web. That suggests that three million Mac users in the UK might be interested in Demand Five's content, or four times the number of potential visually impaired customers. But one group is supported, the other is not. (It's actually more complex than that: Macintosh computers, due to their ease of use, will no doubt be the preference of at least some impaired users, so the groups overlap.)
This sounds like a case of discrimination to me.
Other broadcasters support Macintosh users by offering a Flash player as an alternative option - although it does not offer as good quality, at least you can watch all the content.
In addition there is an Open Source DRM project, now quite advanced, that Five could be supporting to help develop a platform-agnostic downloadable system that would work on Windows, Macintosh, Linux and more, and would cost nothing in licensing or suffer the challenges of proprietary solutions.
Will Five consider supporting Macintosh users in the future?
Readers will recall that there was an outcry when the BBC played this trick, supporting only Windows users - they remedied that to a degree with the Flash player and they are apparently supporting the open source DRM project. Couldn't Five do the same?
Quite likely there won't be the outcry against Five that there was against the BBC - it's not a public service broadcaster paid for by everyone with a television*, and presumably relatively few people want to watch the programmes - but that's still no reason to exclude a significant, and growing, proportion of the online audience.
* Now, that's interesting... demand Five has a question in its FAQ section: Do I need a TV licence to watch Demand Five programmes on my computer?
The answer given is, "No, you do not need a TV licence to watch programmes on Demand Five as long as you do not have a TV in your home." Is that actually true? The TV Licensing site says, "You need a TV Licence to use any television receiving equipment such as a TV set, digital box, DVD or video recorder, PC, laptop or mobile phone to watch or record television programmes as they're being shown on TV." I suppose the key phrase here is, "as they are being shown on TV".
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, and it's hard not to conclude that you can clearly hear the sound a corpse being kicked before being consigned to the history books.
And I'm not talking about the BBC here.
This isn't really about Ofcom trying to find a public service alternative to the BBC (although that's still lurking in the background), it's more a case of Ofcom trying to cover itself if/when it ultimately transpires that its loudly-trumpeted 'top-slicing' proposal in relation to the licence fee is actually unworkable under European Union legislation.
If top-slicing the licence fee for cross-subsidy purposes is ruled to be an illegal public subsidy (as is fairly likely to be the case), then that would completely scupper Ofcom's public service publisher proposal. Indeed you can hear the furious sound of backpedaling with the classic "not ruling anything out" catch-all statement.
Then there's the ongoing issue of ITV's ever-shrinking public service commitments, which is defended by Currie in economic terms, to quote: "We would be delighted if the numbers looked different. But they don't. The current downturn will accentuate the pressures" - but that's a very specious argument if there ever was one.
Let me explain. If a famous art gallery placed half of its valuable treasures into storage, then fewer people would want to visit the gallery because there would be fewer items worth seeing. Then if the gallery in turn wanted to shrink the amount of space it occupied then it would have a strong case to do so since there's now less of public worth on display.
Which is more or less the case with modern-day ITV. Nowadays it repetitively fills the schedules with soaps and other forms of cheap TV to a largely dwindling audience that channel-hops much more than it used to, hence there's less valuable content on display, so to speak, with much more incentive to cut back on the public service commitments.
So it's no wonder that ITV has an audience that's smaller than it really ought to be at this point despite the recent proliferation of numerous television channels, along with all those years of faster-than-average audience decline before Michael Grade took over that have (perhaps) been conveniently forgotten about.
Therefore we can conclude that ITV has dug itself a very deep hole as a consequence, along with burying much of the remaining potential for advertiser-funded public service broadcasting that may still exist. And Ofcom appears to be still obsessed with finding vaguely workable alternatives as opposed to fixing the existing system.
Which, come to think of it, would be 'too difficult' for them.
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 conspired to become the so-called tipping point which has made certain stations and service areas (as specified by Ofcom) becoming no longer economically viable.
It's ironic though that the local radio sector is complaining about BBC local news (website-based or otherwise) when radio groups such as Global/GCap, Bauer and UKRD are moving away from local radio provision into the murky waters of quasi-national networking, with only token concessions being made for local news provision.
However beneath the inevitable BBC-bashing that economic hardship within the commercial media sector can occasionally trigger (regardless of the actual underlying causes) there's a real problem in relation to how local radio licences are currently awarded and regulated.
In short, Ofcom and the government have been dishing out lots of radio licences to anyone who's willing to pay for them (as well as meeting certain criteria) but perhaps not paying enough attention to whether or not they are actually viable. This not only includes the cost of the licences but also the nature of the radio format(s) specified by them.
Maybe the whole radio licensing system requires a major overhaul, and a switch to digital radio would be an opportune moment to make such a change, although the fiasco surrounding DAB digital radio has delayed that possibility for several years.
In the meantime, commercial radio will continue to suffer through reasons both self-inflicted and beyond its control, and certain measures formerly designed to please commercial operators (such as redrawing coverage maps and changing formats) may inevitably end up hurting them instead.
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 radio licence, namely Wisbech-based Fen Radio (in Cambridgeshire), staffed by four people and having a service area of just 77,000 potential listeners.
UKRD was the first radio group ever to hand back a UK local radio licence (Star Stroud), and River FM (a Kingdom Group station in Scotland) later followed suit in the same fashion, so Fen Radio will be the third station to throw in the towel as opposed to the previously usual practice of selling the licence on to someone else.
So what went wrong this time? It's not quite as simple as merely just having a radio station that was too small to work properly hence becoming unprofitable in a worsening economic climate (even though that's undoubtedly the main cause of failure) - the station supposedly had a 20% reach within its service area.
However Fen Radio was originally known as X-Cel FM and had a service area that extended into Ely, although the Ely service was subsumed into Star Cambridge in 2002. This could be the real root of the problem, namely that the original radio service area was scaled down to a size that was too small to be separately viable when things get tough.
According to Ofcom documents (map, station format), Ely's Star Cambridge simulcast is still part of the Fenland licence, so when the licence is handed back this will cease at the same time. Therefore both areas must have been viewed as jointly unprofitable by UKRD management.
We could also assume that UKRD had privately asked Ofcom whether Fen Radio could be replaced by a simulcast of another UKRD station (if not a relocation request as with Star Stroud), and presumably the answer was "No". So UKRD ultimately decided that the only way out was to hand back the licence for the whole Fenland area.
In the Star Stroud case there were geographical restrictions that helped to complicate matters, but this time it just seems that UKRD simply held too many licences for local radio in a particular area. Maybe Ofcom needs to revise much more than just expectations if local radio (analogue or digital) is to be truly successful in the long term.
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 model.
I'm an existing O2 iPhone customer, and very kindly O2 gave us the opportunity to register our interest: as a result I received a text message when the phones became available, so I could go on-line and order one. The deal for existing customers was available until October 11.
So far, so good. But then it all started to go pear-shaped. I was teaching in Greece at the time, with the benefit of an excellent internet connection and I logged into the site, got my customer number from my on-line bill and filled in the order form. It took all the details, including credit card, and I pressed the button.
Next thing I saw was a page telling me an error had occurred, and please try again.
I did so, which was quick and easy as the cache held most of my data. Again it failed.
It was obvious what was going on: there was a huge demand - bigger than anyone had expected - and the system was simply clogged up. But the O2 site didn't tell you that: it just encouraged you to try again. And indeed I tried again a great many times, on the 7th and every subsequent day until the on-line order page was removed, to be replaced by an "out of stock" banner. I reckon I tried around 250 times in all. A great many people have had the same or a similar experience: see here and here and here for example.
On my return to the UK I called O2 Customer Service and eventually got through to a very distant-sounding gentleman in Glasgow. I told him that I had had all this trouble, and that I understood there was unprecedented demand. I didn't mind that I won't get it for a while, I told him; but can I place an order - which I had been trying to do but had been foiled by their web site failure - and thus get in the queue to receive one? The answer was no: they were being allocated on a "strictly first come, first served basis" and as they were not currently available they couldn't let me order one.
In what sense, I asked, was stopping me placing an order for a back-ordered product, "first come, first served"? Well, I was told, it was company policy not to accept back-orders for the iPhone 3G, even though that is a perfectly normal activity for a supplier. Usually a seller will rather like the idea of potential customers - especially ones who are prepared to put their money down in advance of the product actually becoming available. There's nothing like a full order-book.
Not so for O2, however, it would appear. So what was I supposed to do? I was told that availability would be notified on the web site and to keep checking back. I pointed out that this was not in any sense "first come, first served" - it was in fact a lottery.
In addition, I had been made an offer by the company and, due to the failure of its facilities, which is their problem and not mine, I had been prevented from taking advantage of this offer. The obvious answer was to let me place the order another way, as I had done everything that was required of me to place the order. They were, in fact, by not allowing me to do so, in breach of contract.
Needless to say, this didn't go down very well. We went round and round for a few minutes, with this guy trying to persuade me that "first come, first served" actually meant the same as a lottery in which if you happened to see the notification on the web site you could order an iPhone upgrade, with luck before the October deadline. But this didn't mean I would be able to order one before the expiration of the offer, even though I had done all I was told was required to do so - except actually place the order, which was their fault and not mine. Eventually I gave up.
I thought it might be worth seeing what the score was at my nearest O2 store and called them. He gave me essentially the same story, using this false "first come, first served" phrase liberally again. Again I pointed out that what he was proposing - they would have signs in the window when they next had an allocation of iPhones and I could come in if I happened to pass by at that moment and order one then - was in fact a lottery.
He told me that all staff had been sent emails by head office that threatened investigation and dismissal if any member of staff was found taking details of potential customers with a view to putting them on a list - which of course would be how to offer "first come, first served". Presumably this now-common phrase was included in the emails sent to employees. He wouldn't send me a copy, of course, but if you can, then email relen [at] transdiffusion.org.
Evidently O2 is taking advantage of its monopoly position to save it a tiny bit of effort. If it really wanted to offer "first come, first served", this simple two-step process is what it would do:
Allow customers to place an order whenever they like, creating a "first come, first served" back-order queue for each store, including the online one, just like any company does for a back-ordered product.
Every time a shipment of iPhones comes in, make an allocation to stores, including the online store, in proportion to the number of original iPhones sold (for example).
Thus existing customers have the opportunity to order a unit before the deadline, for example, if they choose to, and all customers get a unit in the order in which their order was placed.
That is true "first come, first served", as opposed to the current lottery, which puts O2, in my humble non-legal opinion, in breach of contract - at least with existing customers. Anyone planning a class-action lawsuit, count me in.
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 a lot in various places, but I make no apologies for saying it again. It's all very well making good plans to save money, but as always, the devil is in the details, and these are the things you have to watch most carefully, because if you don't, they will come back and bite you on the rear end when you least expect it.
Broadcast Now also have a copy of the letter that has been sent out to every member of staff and it makes interesting reading. The plans as we know were to cut the number of regions down to 9, but in essence, each region would produce 2 sub-regional programmes for it's region from it's hub. So take the West of England and Westcountry as an example. Bristol would produce two shows. One to go out to the West of England, one to go out to the Westcountry. Sounds simple enough, but think about this. Bristol to Penzance is about a 3 hour journey time, by road or rail.
Now, you can say, well surely they can have some facilities in Plymouth or closer, but that's not the point. It's the sense of disconnect from the location. Listeners in Plymouth have had that disconnect feeling twice now, from the same company. Back in the early 1990s Plymouth Sound decided to join forces with their Exeter based sister station, Devonair, and provide a joint evening and overnight service. Plymouth listeners practically revolted over the development, and you found listeners moving away from Plymouth Sound at that time. It all came to an end when Devonair closed at the end of 1994, a loser in a franchise auction, to be replaced by Gemini FM.
Then in 1999, Plymouth Sound then decided that their AM service needed to change, from the local Plymouth Sound AM that had been running separately on AM since about 1990, to a networked Classic Gold Plymouth. WIthin 6 months, they'd lost two thirds of their listeners, as Plymouth listeners did not like the fact that a local station had been replaced by a quasi-national one. Even now, Gold Plymouth is a ratings failure, with a reach of just 7,000 listeners in a market of around 330,000 listeners.
Half the UK is going to feel that kind of disconnect under the plans ITV are working on.
The letter also says a detailed plan will be published in the autumn, but the headlines they list do not make great reading.
18 'local' services within a nine region structure
Like I just said, half the country will end up feeling disconnected from ITV
High quality programmes for ITV viewers everywhere
Technical quality, yes, but other definitions of quality might be less easy to claim on
A familiar 'family of faces' making up every regional reporting team
Erm, shouldn't encouraging new talent be a part of that as well?
High TV production values incorporating excellent graphics
Means it will look great, even if it's nothing more than manure, it'll be nice, shiny manure!
Excellent presentation both in the studio and on the road
You actually need to say this? That should be a given.
Broadband delivery as important as television fully integrated in all newsrooms
This is one of the few headlines that reads well. Perhaps, finally, it is a recognition that internet broadcasting is as much a part of our broadcasting future, as satellite and terrestrial are.
We will create truly local city and county sites within ITV Local
They will need to work hard to make these sites work, and there is little sign that ITV really wants to work very hard of anything. Look at how quickly they dropped the ITV News Channel.
Harnessing technology to improve newsgathering and production
Well, that's always going to happen in any broadcast environment. Again, completely unnecessary to say it
Ability to go live from location right across England and Wales a strong satellite and live link fleet
The way we always seem to have reporters live at every location, seems somewhat excessive. For stories that are constantly developing, then yes there is a case for it, but what is wrong with a straight forward packaged report?
A recognition that the capacity to report from location is more important than maintaining oversized expensive buildings or concerns over where studios are located
Wrong, totally wrong, absolutely overflowing with wrong-ness! This would suggest that eventually news will not be presented from a studio, but reporters live in various locations just linking to each other. God, what a horrid thought!
Camera coverage to suit the job; i) maintaining sufficient craft camera operators to provide the quality we need in high end features and on news stories, ii) reporters who can film their own material for use on TV and broadband, with appropriate training to support them iii) ensuring the operators of our 'live from location' satellite vehicles have high quality camera and editing skills
In other words, everybody's gotta multitask. As if there isn't enough of that already!
Clear, inclusive leadership in every region with good communication right across ING
This is an area business tends to fail in. Leadership always says do as I say, and communication tends to work only one way, from the top down. I hope they keep this promise, but I won't hold my breath waiting.
An emphasis on excellent programme producing, first rate planning, high quality news editing and creative features production
This sounds good, but again, I'm not holding my breath waiting for it.
Editorial decisions driven locally. ING will continue to ensure 'best practice' is shared but regional diversity will continue to be celebrated
How can you make an editorial decision for Cornwall, from Bristol? Bristol is a completely different vibe and atmosphere to Cornwall. Hell, Cornwall is different to Plymouth, to Devon, and just abouot anywhere else.
An adherence to ITV values. We're going through major change and we want ITV regional news to continue to be a great place to work
As far as I know, ITV values seems to be appeal to the lowest common denominator. Some of us would prefer ITV to try to raise the bar just a little bit.
They say they anticipate this new structure to begin in 2009. I hope I'm proved wrong, but somehow, considering my own disconnect from ITV, I don't think so.
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 hardly anyone is interested in a takeover that would make shareholders happy. (Though RTL might risk going for it if the share price was to become even more attractive.)
Therefore it isn't surprising that ITV is looking long and hard at where it can cut back its operations, and any form of duplication that doesn't obviously have 'shareholder value' - namely regional news - is going to be high on that hitlist.
Step forward Channel 4, which has little or nothing to cut back on and is instead looking to improve its public service credentials further in order to help safeguard its future in a competitive marketplace. Channel 4 has nothing to lose whilst ITV is desperately trying to move in the opposite direction.
Of course there's another question which is immediately raised if ITV and Channel 4 swap obligations in respect of regional news provision, namely could Channel 4 become the next Channel 3? On its own, Channel 4 couldn't afford to bid for Channel 3 licences but does have a privileged position as well as having the right attitude that ITV seems to lack.
If regional news is truly on the agenda for Channel 4, then adding regional programming might be the next logical progression. Given that Channel 4 is prepared to upset its current schedule for the addition of regional news, then the addition of regional programming might as well be considered at the same time.
However the addition of regional programming to Channel 4 would result in encroachment on ITV's territory as a consequence, although it's just as easy to argue that ITV is now intent on moving in the opposite direction of becoming just another commercial channel like Sky One or Virgin 1. This in turn could further jeopardise ITV's Channel 3 status.
Alternatively getting Channel 4 to supply the regional news on Channel 3 could upset ITV, but ITV may not be able to argue with such a proposal if it wants to keep its Channel 3 position. Current Culture Secretary Andy Burnham seems to have adopted a relatively tough line on ITV's regional commitments so this option isn't entirely out of the question.
Perhaps the only real solution is to scrap all of the existing regional Channel 3 licences, drawing up new regional boundaries if required and readvertise them again, although to do so might indirectly imply a government policy failure so this may not happen until there's a change of administration.
It all depends how valuable that much-coveted Channel 3 position is to ITV plc, and based on the current evidence it seems that ITV is only interested in the status it gives as a broadcaster opposed to the associated long-term commitments.
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 done just to keep the regulators happy. The way this affects programme content is a cause for concern, but not necessarily in the way some might think.
You can perhaps tell that traditional broadcasters are a world apart from advertising agencies, since the latter seems to thrive on ways of circumventing the numerous restrictions that have been placed in their path whilst the former appears to just moan that their wonderful idea for a phone-in has now become too much trouble to implement.
It seems that the current crop of producers and presenters should not only ally themselves closer to their respective managers but also need to extend their horizons beyond finding new ways of fleecing money interacting with their listeners - not everyone was enamoured with what passed for 'entertainment' just before the scandals erupted.
If done correctly and fairly, interactivity can add value (as suggested by many within the media industry), but more often than not just superficially helped to paper over cracks that shouldn't be there in the first place. Both radio and television relied too heavily on interactivity, and it's now time to bring other creative ideas to the forefront again.
Or are most of the current crop of media professionals just not creative enough?
As somehow befitting a modern broadcaster, it's taken a while but they got there in the end, namely that someone within the BBC has finally realised that the recently-imposed corporate end credit promotion style (you know, the one where the credits get shrunk into a tiny box to make way for details of six programmes you don't care about) just wasn't satisfactory.
A fair number of complaints came from members of the public who couldn't read the end credits when they were squeezed, but presumably a more persuasive voice on the issue came from actors' union Equity who has campaigned against this sort of thing on behalf of its members.
It's good news that the relevant parts of the BBC have finally seen sense and decided to axe the wretched thing (look at Channel 4 to see how to do essentially the same thing a whole lot better), as opposed to just playing around with the credit text size (an interim idea floated back in February) that obviously wasn't the answer to the problem.
However the very fact that the BBC marketing department is now quickly backpedaling on something that was designed only last year with the assistance of licence fee payers' money is rather worrying. Take this quote from Helen Kellie who's head of marketing:
"We also want to improve legibility so we will phase out the quarter page of end credits. And finally we are simplifying the messages we include in the end credits and making them feel less busy".
Bear in mind that this is the head of the very same marketing department that presumably helped to design that overly busy, ill-conceived and badly planned mess of an end credit promotion (ECP) layout in the first place.
And you just have consider the effectiveness of a command structure that allowed a marketing department to impose its will on an important subdivision (namely that of presentation) without any form of constructive feedback unless they were perhaps too scared to say anything because they feared for their jobs.
Half of me was hoping that the individuals responsible for that disaster were shown the door as part of Mark Thompson's recent staff clearout, but something tells me that this may not have been the case. This example just proves what can go wrong when marketing messes up big time and nobody had the bottle to simply say "No".
Alternatively you could take the view that in the world of modern broadcasting it is automatically assumed that "the marketing department knows best", therefore any and all recommendations from that department end up being rubber-stamped without anyone cross-checking them. Because their surveys prove that they're always right. Right?
This could theoretically end up being the best solution to the lingering problem of how best to support broadcasters with public service remits when money is hard to come by and when confronted with unworkable alternatives, although it may be desirable for the likes of Channel 4 to also increase their public service credentials as a consequence.
Although Channel 4 isn't specifically mentioned, such a proposal does seem to have been designed particularly with them in mind, especially after Channel 4 had previously accused the BBC of having "closed body language" when dealing with other broadcasters. (Which may be an unfounded accusation, but that's beside the point.)
The BBC could also benefit in kind from closer cooperation with broadcasters like Channel 4, and the limited pooling of resources may also have beneficial side effects such as reducing the amount of duplication across channels. So everybody could potentially win from such a deal as long as the boundaries are tightly defined.
However, Channel 4 in particular may still have much more work to do on its side of the bargain in order to improve its public service credentials further, so in turn it will have to find another way of easing the commercial pressures that the broadcaster will face in the near future in order to continue to maintain its semblance of a public service remit.
And that will be far from easy for Channel 4, especially with the added burden of digital radio to contend with.
Another suggestion mentioned elsewhere is for the BBC to cross-promote Channel 4 programmes on BBC channels, which may seem a surreal concept but is something that would directly benefit Channel 4 with minimal cost to the BBC as a result (as opposed to having the BBC licence fee permanently top-sliced).
However there may still be an ideological problem. Although relatively painless for the BBC, assisting existing public service broadcasters may run counter to the philosophy of Ofcom's original "public service publisher" proposal, namely the concept of having a new 'digital age' public service broadcaster that was totally independent of the BBC.
It all depends whether or not Ofcom's Ed Richards (and politicians) feel that the issue of saving the public service credentials of existing broadcasters such as Channel 4 is more important than reinventing the wheel with yet another public service broadcaster that would end up consuming precious resources just for the sake of a bit of 'plurality'.
Regardless of the outcome of any European Union anti-subsidy directives, the resources for another public service broadcaster cannot be obtained without something else suffering as a consequence, unless the currently unthinkable was to happen and the licence fee or general taxation was increased in order to pay for another broadcaster.
And that may not even be possible if classed as a cross-subsidy under EU legislation.
So it appears to be a relatively straight choice between 'saving' Channel 4 with the partial help of the BBC, or pulling money out of thin air to fund something of unknown worth whilst letting other public assets rot. The smart money's on the former, even if the latter may be an ideologically closer fit to various politicians' ulterior motives.
Normally when a death occurs occurs out of the public eye, steps are taken to hold back the news out of courtesy until next of kin have been informed. This is particularly true when the death is that of a public figure.
Thus, when NBC News presenter Tim Russert died over a week ago on June 13 - subject of this month's lead article in Transdiffusion, the network held back public announcement of the news until it could inform Russert's family, just returned from holiday in Italy at the time, as well as preparing its own obituary coverage.
NBCs efforts to preserve a sense of decency in the Internet age were in vain, however, as Wikipedia - or at least, one of its contributors - got there quicker.
Russert collapsed as the result of a heart attack at about 1:40pm, according to the New York Times, and he was pronounced dead after his arrival at a local hospital around 2:30, while NBC News colleague Tom Brokaw made the on-air announcement just over an hour later. Major newspapers carried the news a few minutes earlier.
However the Wikipedia entry for Tim Russert was updated just thirty minutes after he had been pronounced dead, including the date of death and editing of verbs from present to past. NBC staff were surprised to learn of the update, having taken steps to delay their own announcement and securing the agreement of other networks to do the same. "We wanted to be sure, absolutely certain, that every member of Tims family who needed to be told in person, in private, had that opportunity, was given that small piece of grace today. Other organizations did not do that," said MSNBC host Keith Olbermann as reported in the New York Times.
Keith Olbermann remembers Tim Russert (above)
The record of changes at Wikipedia indicated that the edits were made by someone at Internet Broadcasting Services in St Paul, Minnesota. A junior employee, who apparently made the update, was later fired.
The information was on line for just ten or so minutes before the edits were redacted by someone else at IBS - although half an hour later the news was made public and the Wikipedia article was re-edited again.
In theory, Wikipedia's principles include the idea that there should be no original research published on the site: information has to have appeared somewhere else reputable beforehand. But this kind of thing has happened more than once, generally involving the death of celebrities, when a person's page has been updated as soon as the news has become known by someone, somewhere out there.
In the world of journalism, a scoop - getting the story out first - has always been a prime directive. However, that determination has always been tempered with respect, especially when it comes to informing families of the dead officially before an announcement is made. Regrettably, new media have less of a traditional sense of decency.
