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Ian Burrell
Ian Burrell edits the Media Weekly pages of The Independent.
The World Association of Newspapers today opened its annual summit with a moment of silence for the 30 journalists murdered in the Philippines in what has been described as the worst attack on the media in history.
The association's president, Gavin O'Reilly, who is also chief executive of Independent News & Media (owners of The Independent), described the atrocity - which claimed 57 lives in total - as "an act of savagery that has written one of the blackest pages in the history of the world's press".
In Manila yesterday, hundreds of journalists and human activists marched on the presidential palace to protest at the massacre, which is being linked to a clan feud and forthcoming elections in the south of the country.
Yet outside of the Philippines, the story has been under-reported by the world's media. Alan Davis, of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, who visited the scene of the killings, tells me that the "only international team I saw there was Al-Jazeera". He wondered aloud whether the story would have received more attention if it had been Twittered by Stephen Fry.
Davis sent me a picture of one of the bodies of the victims of the massacre being scooped up with a pile of earth in the bucket of a JCB digger. Although the south of the Philippines is a dangerous place for journalists, the British media could have done more to highlight this outrage. "Even given the cutbacks it has not been the greatest to say the least," says Davis. "I can't help thinking that there is a sub-conscious feeling of 'It's only the Philippines'."
The association's president, Gavin O'Reilly, who is also chief executive of Independent News & Media (owners of The Independent), described the atrocity - which claimed 57 lives in total - as "an act of savagery that has written one of the blackest pages in the history of the world's press".
In Manila yesterday, hundreds of journalists and human activists marched on the presidential palace to protest at the massacre, which is being linked to a clan feud and forthcoming elections in the south of the country.
Yet outside of the Philippines, the story has been under-reported by the world's media. Alan Davis, of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, who visited the scene of the killings, tells me that the "only international team I saw there was Al-Jazeera". He wondered aloud whether the story would have received more attention if it had been Twittered by Stephen Fry.
Davis sent me a picture of one of the bodies of the victims of the massacre being scooped up with a pile of earth in the bucket of a JCB digger. Although the south of the Philippines is a dangerous place for journalists, the British media could have done more to highlight this outrage. "Even given the cutbacks it has not been the greatest to say the least," says Davis. "I can't help thinking that there is a sub-conscious feeling of 'It's only the Philippines'."
Ten million digital radios are now in the possession of the UK public, it has been announced today. It took eight years to sell the first five million digital sets but 30 months to shift the next five million.
Tony Moretta, the chief executive of the Digital Radio Development Bureau, claimed that this is an "incredible achievement" and means "digital radio is here to stay". According to the DRDB, Ford and Vauxhall are enthusiastic about introducing far more digital radios into cars, which is key to the success of the platform.
But not everyone sees such a positive story in the latest figures. Especially UTV Media, which owns Talk Sport and wants digital to exist alongside FM/AM and not replace them in 2015 with the planned switch off of the analogue signal. UTV has this afternoon put out a provocative announcement claiming the opposite of the DRDB: namely that digital radio is actually in decline. It points out that 2.2m sets were sold in 2008 but only 1.3m have been sold in this calendar year. Even allowing for a surge in sales for Christmas presents, this isn't very impressive.
In any case, the planned UK Radioplayer website, with more than 400 stations on one page and accessible on the move, could soon make all radio sets redundant.
Tony Moretta, the chief executive of the Digital Radio Development Bureau, claimed that this is an "incredible achievement" and means "digital radio is here to stay". According to the DRDB, Ford and Vauxhall are enthusiastic about introducing far more digital radios into cars, which is key to the success of the platform.
But not everyone sees such a positive story in the latest figures. Especially UTV Media, which owns Talk Sport and wants digital to exist alongside FM/AM and not replace them in 2015 with the planned switch off of the analogue signal. UTV has this afternoon put out a provocative announcement claiming the opposite of the DRDB: namely that digital radio is actually in decline. It points out that 2.2m sets were sold in 2008 but only 1.3m have been sold in this calendar year. Even allowing for a surge in sales for Christmas presents, this isn't very impressive.
In any case, the planned UK Radioplayer website, with more than 400 stations on one page and accessible on the move, could soon make all radio sets redundant.
The BBC Trust has today condemend the "serious and repeated" breaches of BBC guidelines by independent production comapny Reef Television in making daytime programmes on BBC One and BBC Two.
Events were re-staged without the audience being told and members of the production company's staff posed on set as if they were members of the public. The breaches occurred on 'Sun, Sea and Bargain Spotting', a show that was presented by Angela Rippon and ran over five years on BBC One and BBC Two, 'Trash for Cash' (they said it) on BBC One, and Dealers: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, which was on BBC One last year.
So once again the television industry's production processes and compliance procedures have been found wanting. It's a familiar story, where the audience is treated with disdain.
Yet one wonders how many viewers really care. All the various scandals associated with ITV's management of premium rate telephone voting have not stopped X Factor fans from backing their favourites, and Ant & Dec's involvement in some of these stories doesn't stop ITV giving them a new deal, nor 8m tuning in to watch the current series.
Events were re-staged without the audience being told and members of the production company's staff posed on set as if they were members of the public. The breaches occurred on 'Sun, Sea and Bargain Spotting', a show that was presented by Angela Rippon and ran over five years on BBC One and BBC Two, 'Trash for Cash' (they said it) on BBC One, and Dealers: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, which was on BBC One last year.
So once again the television industry's production processes and compliance procedures have been found wanting. It's a familiar story, where the audience is treated with disdain.
Yet one wonders how many viewers really care. All the various scandals associated with ITV's management of premium rate telephone voting have not stopped X Factor fans from backing their favourites, and Ant & Dec's involvement in some of these stories doesn't stop ITV giving them a new deal, nor 8m tuning in to watch the current series.
Just after switching to free distribution, the London Evening Standard is having to make a further round of job cuts with, I understand, around 20 posts going across the production and editorial departments.
In a sad irony, the recent announcement by Associated Newspapers of the closure of the free title London Lite - greeted with joy at the Standard because of the opportunities in the market it provided - has also cost some people at the Standard their jobs. This is because the Standard and the Lite had a previous arrangement - when both were wholly owned by Associated - to share copy. Now that Alexander Lebedev's title is the sole player in the market some of those jobs are no longer needed.
The Standard's editor Geordie Greig has announced today a plan to print the paper later so that all 600,000 copies will be billed "West End Final".
In a sad irony, the recent announcement by Associated Newspapers of the closure of the free title London Lite - greeted with joy at the Standard because of the opportunities in the market it provided - has also cost some people at the Standard their jobs. This is because the Standard and the Lite had a previous arrangement - when both were wholly owned by Associated - to share copy. Now that Alexander Lebedev's title is the sole player in the market some of those jobs are no longer needed.
The Standard's editor Geordie Greig has announced today a plan to print the paper later so that all 600,000 copies will be billed "West End Final".
With cuts pending at the BBC and the D-G conducting a strategic review, I'm relieved to see my personal favourite channel BBC Four is showing a stiff upper lip.
Last night's biopic on Gracie Fields pulled in a record 1.4m for the channel (including me), for an insightful piece that starred Jane Horrocks and showed the discrimination the mill lass suffered for the 'crime' of having married an Italian at the outset of World War Two, even though she'd been out to the front to sing for 'our boys'. Tom Hollander - Thick of It fans might remember him as the minister in In the Loop, the film version of the satirical show - was excellent as Italian film producer Monty Banks (aka Mario Bianchi).
The 3.3% share that BBC Four managed last night was its best-ever. The audience of 1.4m matched the channels previous best, for The Curse of Steptoe in March 2008.
We also learned, in a neatly scheduled documentary that followed, that "Our Gracie" wasn't really a mill lass, more of a child prodigy from musical theatre. In many ways, as an ordinary girl with a great set of lungs, she filled the same space in society as some of today's X Factor divas, though her supporters and relatives, shown in interviews last night, saw her as much more than that. Musical hall veteran Roy Hudd even compared her to Frank Sinatra.
BBC Four's earlier piece on Enid Blyton pulled in 1.2m, very good for a digital channel. Next up is the channel's treatment of Margot Fonteyn.
This is quality stuff. So hands off Mark Thompson and hands off Tories!
Last night's biopic on Gracie Fields pulled in a record 1.4m for the channel (including me), for an insightful piece that starred Jane Horrocks and showed the discrimination the mill lass suffered for the 'crime' of having married an Italian at the outset of World War Two, even though she'd been out to the front to sing for 'our boys'. Tom Hollander - Thick of It fans might remember him as the minister in In the Loop, the film version of the satirical show - was excellent as Italian film producer Monty Banks (aka Mario Bianchi).
The 3.3% share that BBC Four managed last night was its best-ever. The audience of 1.4m matched the channels previous best, for The Curse of Steptoe in March 2008.
We also learned, in a neatly scheduled documentary that followed, that "Our Gracie" wasn't really a mill lass, more of a child prodigy from musical theatre. In many ways, as an ordinary girl with a great set of lungs, she filled the same space in society as some of today's X Factor divas, though her supporters and relatives, shown in interviews last night, saw her as much more than that. Musical hall veteran Roy Hudd even compared her to Frank Sinatra.
BBC Four's earlier piece on Enid Blyton pulled in 1.2m, very good for a digital channel. Next up is the channel's treatment of Margot Fonteyn.
This is quality stuff. So hands off Mark Thompson and hands off Tories!
Could there be something of a tactical retreat going on at the BBC? Some of its senior executives would certainly be happy for us to think so.
Talking to one high-up, it's clear that the BBC thinks it's doing much to give breathing space to commercial media players - including its old rival ITV - who are struggling with the economic downturn.
You will remember how News Corp's James Murdoch used his Edinburgh Television Festival speech in August to call for the corporation to have its wings clipped, and how the BBC made an - albeit belated - attempt to fight its corner.
Now with the Tories lined up to - at least in part - give the Beeb the haircut that Murdoch desires, the executives at White City want to be seen to be as accommodating and unaggressive as possible.
The BBC really thinks it is giving ITV a comfortable ride on Sundays and that claims it is scheduling aggressively against The X Factor on Saturday evenings are mischievous untruths got up by the commerical broadcaster's spinners.
The Beeb is also, it is said, looking at cutting back on text on its all-powerful website bbc.co.uk and concentrating on its core functions of audio and video, allowing newspaper sites more room but also giving web-users more of what they most want.
And with Mark Thompson currently conducting a strategic review of BBC services, due to be published in the new year, I hear there is likely to be a cutting back on some areas of production and that the future existence of some channels is even under consideration.
Meanwhile the expenses of the senior execs are being trotted out to make the BBC look like the cleanest organisation of them all.
It's a far cry from just a few years ago, when the Beeb's publicity machine boasted of how the populist BBC1 was smashing its rivals in the ratings, when White City execs wanted to take BBC News across America and conquer the internet with the BBC's vast video archive.
Have those ambitions really been shelved, or is this just a ruse to placate a probable incoming Tory government that is, I hear, far more accommodating in private than it has been on the platforms of rival media companies?
Talking to one high-up, it's clear that the BBC thinks it's doing much to give breathing space to commercial media players - including its old rival ITV - who are struggling with the economic downturn.
You will remember how News Corp's James Murdoch used his Edinburgh Television Festival speech in August to call for the corporation to have its wings clipped, and how the BBC made an - albeit belated - attempt to fight its corner.
Now with the Tories lined up to - at least in part - give the Beeb the haircut that Murdoch desires, the executives at White City want to be seen to be as accommodating and unaggressive as possible.
The BBC really thinks it is giving ITV a comfortable ride on Sundays and that claims it is scheduling aggressively against The X Factor on Saturday evenings are mischievous untruths got up by the commerical broadcaster's spinners.
The Beeb is also, it is said, looking at cutting back on text on its all-powerful website bbc.co.uk and concentrating on its core functions of audio and video, allowing newspaper sites more room but also giving web-users more of what they most want.
And with Mark Thompson currently conducting a strategic review of BBC services, due to be published in the new year, I hear there is likely to be a cutting back on some areas of production and that the future existence of some channels is even under consideration.
Meanwhile the expenses of the senior execs are being trotted out to make the BBC look like the cleanest organisation of them all.
It's a far cry from just a few years ago, when the Beeb's publicity machine boasted of how the populist BBC1 was smashing its rivals in the ratings, when White City execs wanted to take BBC News across America and conquer the internet with the BBC's vast video archive.
Have those ambitions really been shelved, or is this just a ruse to placate a probable incoming Tory government that is, I hear, far more accommodating in private than it has been on the platforms of rival media companies?
The BBC has just announced the setting up of a new online radio player that will include every licensed radio station in the UK.
The site, which is due to launch early next year, will offer more than 400 stations from around the country.
The plan, which I revealed in The Independent last month, is good news for the radio industry and shows a new spirit of co-operation between the corporation and the commercial sector.
The site, which is due to launch early next year, will offer more than 400 stations from around the country.
The plan, which I revealed in The Independent last month, is good news for the radio industry and shows a new spirit of co-operation between the corporation and the commercial sector.
Within a day of making her inaugural speech as chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, Baroness Buscombe is facing a call for her to resign.
At the end of her first speech, given to the Society of Editors conference last night, Baroness Buscombe told the audience that MPs on the committee may have been misled by evidence that alleged that 6,000 people had been victims of phone-hacking by the News of the World. She said that Scotland Yard lawyers, acting on behalf of a police detective said to have given this figure, had told the PCC he had been misquoted. Only a "handful" of people had been victims, the Yard had said.
But now the Manchester-based lawyer who gave the select committee the 6,000 figure, Mark Lewis, has hit back, standing by his account and calling on Baroness Buscombe to step down. "I regret that your failure to act properly has compromised any veneer of impartiality that you sought to create," he said in a letter to the PCC, copied to the select committee.
Mr Lewis said that his conversation with the police detective had taken place in the presence of two witnesses.
The Culture select committee, which has taken evidence from numerous witnesses, including the former News of the World editor and now Conservative communications director Andy Coulson, is due to publish its own report shortly.
Baroness Buscombe, the new chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, has ambitions for her organisation that go beyond the traditional newspaper companies.
She wants to examine the possibility that the PCC's role should be extended to cover the blogosphere, which is becoming an increasing source of breaking news and boasts some of the media's highest-profile commentators, such as the political bloggers Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes. Do readers of such sites, and people mentioned on them, deserve the same rights of redress that the PCC offers in respect of newspapers and their sites?
"Some of the bloggers are now creating their own ecosystems which are quite sophisticated," Baroness Buscombe told me. "Is the reader of those blogs assuming that it's news, and is [the blogosphere] the new newspapers? It's a very interesting area and quite challenging."
She said that after a review of the governance structures of the PCC, she would want the organisation to "consider" whether it should seek to extend its remit to the blogosphere, a process that would involve discussion with the press industry, the public and bloggers (who would presumably have to volunteer to come beneath the PCC's umbrella).
The PCC regulates the press online as well as in print, and its remit also extends to the Sun's radio operation, SunTalk.
Blogging, with its tradition of being free and unregulated, sees itself as very different. But is it really?
She wants to examine the possibility that the PCC's role should be extended to cover the blogosphere, which is becoming an increasing source of breaking news and boasts some of the media's highest-profile commentators, such as the political bloggers Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes. Do readers of such sites, and people mentioned on them, deserve the same rights of redress that the PCC offers in respect of newspapers and their sites?
"Some of the bloggers are now creating their own ecosystems which are quite sophisticated," Baroness Buscombe told me. "Is the reader of those blogs assuming that it's news, and is [the blogosphere] the new newspapers? It's a very interesting area and quite challenging."
She said that after a review of the governance structures of the PCC, she would want the organisation to "consider" whether it should seek to extend its remit to the blogosphere, a process that would involve discussion with the press industry, the public and bloggers (who would presumably have to volunteer to come beneath the PCC's umbrella).
The PCC regulates the press online as well as in print, and its remit also extends to the Sun's radio operation, SunTalk.
Blogging, with its tradition of being free and unregulated, sees itself as very different. But is it really?
So the new British musical film 1 Day has been banned from key cinemas in the city in which it is set, Birmingham.
Censorship, some might say. It looks insensitive, putting a block on a modern day version of West Side Story, where young British kids get to dance and sing while wearing gang colours.
But I'm with the police officer who voiced concerns to some of Birmingham's major film outlets. This film is based around a real life turf war in the second city between two large groups of criminals, the Johnson Crew and the Burger Bar Boys (the gangs are named for the late night fast food outlets that were their original hangouts).
It is nasty stuff involving firearms. The BBC in 2005 described the gangs as "urban terrorists". Many have been killed often over trivial incidents and mistaken identity. A friend of mine lost his half-brother.
Keeping the film out of Brum at its launch makes sense, rather than having rival gang members debating its merits in the stalls. A British movie loses a few ticket sales but the publicity storm will have raised awareness elsewhere. Birmingham people can travel a short distance to see the film in a less incendiary atmosphere.
Hopefully 1 Day will make it onto DVD and television too. Penny Woolcock's movie sounds great. I'm looking forward to it. Just not in Birmingham.
Much has been written by The Sun and other newspapers over the clashing in the schedules of the two most popular television shows of the moment, Strictly Come Dancing and The X Factor. What is this about?
Strictly gets moved my 10 minutes to start at 6.50pm so the BBC1 schedule can accommodate the new comedy The Impressions Show with Culshaw and Stephenson and apparently it is "running scared" of the more popular ITV show.
Next week (7 November), the BBC show will start even earlier at 6.25pm, not because it is foxtrotting oscar away from Simon Cowell's blockbuster, but because of The Festival of Remembrance, which for obvious public service reasons has priority.
So why the big fuss over a clash in scheduling? Back in the day when you could only change channel by kneeling in front of the telly and punching the three or four buttons - or twirling the dial - there were always big head-to-heads on a Saturday night. ITV's Blind Date versus the BBC's Noel's House Party. ITV's Tommy Cooper against the BBC's Morecambe & Wise (before they too moved to ITV) .
At least nowadays most of the country can record their other favourite show on a PVR, or catch it later online. In spite of much coverage of the issue in the press, only 173 people have complained to the BBC over the clash in scheduling. Not quite the 21,000 who complained over Jan Moir's Daily Mail piece on the death of Stephen Gately.
The papers are bashing the BBC because they're angry about its expansionist policies in other areas (particularly online) and are looking for any evidence of it being overly-aggressive. But while it can be argued that great damage to commercial media is being caused by the all-powerful BBC website, I can't see a problem with the corporation making popular Saturday night television.
ITV has always been BBC1's opposition - the competition is good for both of them. Just because The Sun says otherwise (that's Rupert Murdoch's Sun, which is aligned to Rupert Murdoch's Fox channel, which is lining up The X Factor for America and which also makes American Idol, starring Simon Cowell) it doesn't mean BBC1 should just run up the white flag in its age-old battle with ITV.
The Daily Mail's high-profile columnist Jan Moir this afternoon took the highly unusual step of issuing a statement in an attempt to defuse the fury of respondents to the paper's website following a column published this morning on the death of the pop star Stephen Gately.
Moir's article was widely seen as an outspoken attack on gay lifestyles and civil partnerships. Hundreds of protesters flooded the Mail's website and more than 1,000 complaints were lodged at the Press Complaints Commission.
In a statement hurriedly prepared this afternoon, Moir claimed it had never been her intention to cause offence and claimed that the protest was a "heavily orchestrated Internet campaign" and that it was "mischievous in the extreme to suggest that my article has homophobic and bigoted undertones".
Her words are hardly likely to satisfy her critics and in particular gay rights organisations after she concluded the original article with the reflection that "under the carapace of glittering hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see."
In her statement, released by the Mail's PR company, Brown Lloyd James, Moir stated:
"Some people, particularly in the gay community, have been upset by my article about the sad death of Boyzone member Stephen Gately. This was never my intention. Stephen, as I pointed out in the article was a charming and sweet man who entertained millions. However, the point of my column -which, I wonder how many of the people complaining have fully read - was to suggest that, in my honest opinion, his death raises many unanswered questions. That was all.
"Yes, anyone can die at anytime of anything. However, it seems unlikely to me that what took place in the hours immediately preceding Gately’s death - out all evening at a nightclub, taking illegal substances, bringing a stranger back to the flat, getting intimate with that stranger - did not have a bearing on his death. At the very least, it could have exacerbated an underlying medical condition.
"The entire matter of his sudden death seemed to have been handled with undue haste when lessons could have been learned.
"On this subject, one very important point. When I wrote that ‘he would want to set an example to any impressionable young men who may want to emulate what they might see as his glamorous routine’, I was referring to the drugs and the casual invitation extended to a stranger. Not to the fact of his homosexuality. In writing that ‘it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships’ I was suggesting that civil partnerships - the introduction of which I am on the record in supporting - have proved just to be as problematic as marriages.
"In what is clearly a heavily orchestrated internet campaign I think it is mischievous in the extreme to suggest that my article has homophobic and bigoted undertones."
"What a cold and nasty piece of gutter journalism"...."This is an absolutely revolting article"...."Shame on you Jan Moir", are just a tiny selection of soundbites from the outpouring of outrage on the Daily Mail's website following an extraordinary piece by one of the paper's best-known columnists, suggesting that the death of the Boyzone singer was not by natural causes, as an official announcement had stated.
The article, attacking gay lifestyles, has caused uproar among bloggers and on the instant messaging site Twitter, where calls are being made for an advertising boycott of the Daily Mail and for the sacking of Jan Moir.
On the social networking site Facebook a group has been set up calling for the retraction of the article. Hundreds of users quickly signed up.
Sources at Associated Newspapers, which owns the Mail, were this afternoon trying to distance the paper from the comments of individual columnists, a claim that is hardly likely to appease critics.
Moir is understood to be currently working on a statement to explain her actions.
Scoffing at the outpouring of grief over the pop singer's death, Moir wrote in her column this morning that "The sugar-coating on this fatality is so saccharine-thick that it obscures whatever bitter truth lies beneath." And as she launched into a vicious attack on gay lifestyles, she opined that "whatever the cause of death is, it is not by any yardstick, a natural one."
According to Moir, "I think if we are going to be honest, we would have to admit that the circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy." She then suggested that because Gately and his partner Andrew Cowles had invited a Bulgarian friend home on the evening of Gately's death "it is not disrespectful to assume that a game of canasta...was not what was on the cards".
The singer's death, she said, was a reflection on gay marriage. "Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships," she claimed. "Under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see."
Read the full article here
The former Mayor of London is guest editing The New Statesman this week and has landed the wealthy Russian owner of the London Evening Standard, Alexander Lebedev, to write the magazine's diary column.
But those hoping for insight into the future of the capital or indeed of the British media will be disappointed as the former London KGB man turns his fire on his fellow countrymen.
On holiday in France, he bemoans the taste of Russian investment in the Cote d'Azur, observing that "local people are surprised by the Russians' garish status symbols - chateaux, yachts, Bentleys with Moscow registration plates and a slew of very single girls."
He also reveals that as a child he cherished the idea of living with the indigenous tribes of Borneo or Papua New Guinea, and says the Papuans have a way of differentiating social hierarchy that is not dissimilar to the garish symbols of the Moscow rich. "The people wear holim - pumpkin skin sheaths covering the genitalia - and the size of each shows the social status of each male. Not so different, now I think of it, from the Russian bureaucracy on Moscow's streets with special sirens and blue lights on their BMWs, speeding at up to 140kmh."
The Evening Standard might not be the status symbol it once was but it's still a pretty impressive holim.
But those hoping for insight into the future of the capital or indeed of the British media will be disappointed as the former London KGB man turns his fire on his fellow countrymen.
On holiday in France, he bemoans the taste of Russian investment in the Cote d'Azur, observing that "local people are surprised by the Russians' garish status symbols - chateaux, yachts, Bentleys with Moscow registration plates and a slew of very single girls."
He also reveals that as a child he cherished the idea of living with the indigenous tribes of Borneo or Papua New Guinea, and says the Papuans have a way of differentiating social hierarchy that is not dissimilar to the garish symbols of the Moscow rich. "The people wear holim - pumpkin skin sheaths covering the genitalia - and the size of each shows the social status of each male. Not so different, now I think of it, from the Russian bureaucracy on Moscow's streets with special sirens and blue lights on their BMWs, speeding at up to 140kmh."
The Evening Standard might not be the status symbol it once was but it's still a pretty impressive holim.
As reported here on this blog back on 7 September, Simon Mayo is to replace Chris Evans on Radio 2 drivetime. Mayo confirmed the switch to his listeners today.
The move is a good one for Mayo but not for the section of the BBC PR machine that is trying to persuade staff that plans to transfer some of the corporation's services to Salford in 2011 are a good thing (the move is due to include the Sports and Children's departments as well as Radio 5). Mayo was adamant that he wouldn't head north with the talk-based network and will be pleased to have jumped ship to stay in London.
His most likely replacement is Mark Radcliffe, who as a Mancunian who has often broadcast his previous BBC radio shows from Manchester, will obviously have no problem with Radio 5's new home.
The move is a good one for Mayo but not for the section of the BBC PR machine that is trying to persuade staff that plans to transfer some of the corporation's services to Salford in 2011 are a good thing (the move is due to include the Sports and Children's departments as well as Radio 5). Mayo was adamant that he wouldn't head north with the talk-based network and will be pleased to have jumped ship to stay in London.
His most likely replacement is Mark Radcliffe, who as a Mancunian who has often broadcast his previous BBC radio shows from Manchester, will obviously have no problem with Radio 5's new home.
After the BBC "ageist" controversy surrounding Arlene Phillips being taken off the panel of Strictly Come Dancing at the age off 66 to be replaced by 30 year old Alesha Dixon, the former Hot Gossip choreographer is back on BBC1.
As reported exclusively by this blog last Friday, the BBC has bought the funky So You Think You Can Dance format which has been a big hit in America, where it's being made into a sixth series for Fox TV and is hosted by the British presenter Cat Deeley.
The BBC has today confirmed that auditions for the first British version of the show will begin next month and that Phillips will be on the judging panel alongside "Nasty" Nigel Lythgoe, who once worked with the television dance troupe Young Generation. Lythgoe makes the US show along with Simon Fuller, the TV impressario behind 19 Entertainment.
The move by BBC1 Controller Jay Hunt shows that dance formats are now seen as pivotal to a successful BBC Saturday night. So You Think You Can Dance is more about choreography than celebrity and more street than sequins. So Hunt will be hoping to bring in a younger audience than Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly attract for Strictly.
Stephen Farrell, the New York Times journalist rescued by British forces after being kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan, is the subject of a profile in the Surrey Comet, the local paper on which he started his career.
Even then, Farrell was a "ferocious, old fashioned newshound", recalls a former colleague Tim Harrison, who worked with him in the late 1980s. Ivan McQuisten, Farrell's former editor remembers a hard-working journalist who "only ever wanted to be a war reporter".
Hardly surprising that the leafy Surrey suburbs of Epsom and Esher couldn't sustain Farrell's appetite for hard news. Not judging by his biggest scoops on the Comet anyway. "Some of his more memorable stories," the paper recalls flatly, "were the ill-fated attempt by London Underground to extend the district line to Kingston, and the story of a vicar being forced to quit his post after committing 'gross indecency' with another man in a public toilet."
Even then, Farrell was a "ferocious, old fashioned newshound", recalls a former colleague Tim Harrison, who worked with him in the late 1980s. Ivan McQuisten, Farrell's former editor remembers a hard-working journalist who "only ever wanted to be a war reporter".
Hardly surprising that the leafy Surrey suburbs of Epsom and Esher couldn't sustain Farrell's appetite for hard news. Not judging by his biggest scoops on the Comet anyway. "Some of his more memorable stories," the paper recalls flatly, "were the ill-fated attempt by London Underground to extend the district line to Kingston, and the story of a vicar being forced to quit his post after committing 'gross indecency' with another man in a public toilet."
In the new edition of the left-leaning New Statesman James Macintyre claims that the BBC is wrong to give BNP leader Nick Griffin a platform on Question Time. "My objection," he says, "is that QuestionTime - unlike Newsnight or Today, where presenters could give Griffin a grilling on immigration - would provide a soft format for him to pontificate on a variety of issues of the day. It is hard not to have a 'good' Question Time."
Macintyre writes as a former BBC producer and claims that the corporation's decision to invite Griffin onto the programme is not simply a result of the BNP's relatively-strong showing at the Euro elections, but something that has been under consideration for over two years.
Last week I had a beer with the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson and we talked about the BNP. Robinson described the party's rise as "a legitimate story" and one that he is anxious to cover. He would have reported on the BNP launch for the European Elections but was called away to another assignment.
"They're a legitimate party who some people vote for, who others loathe and despise and think are dangerous, whose ideas must be fully tested and can't be censored," is Robinson's view. I think he's right.
He also warns of overstating the BNP's popularity. "I don't think they're a big part of the general election. The recent elections were on a system of proportional representation which made them more of a factor but rather less than some people thought they would be." I hope he's also right on the BNP struggling under the first-past-the-post system.
The likes of Robinson and John Humphrys should get their chance to put Griffin through the mangle. In the meantime we must trust the vastly-experienced David Dimbleby (for whom Robinson was once a producer), along with the members of the public who make up the Question Time audience, to pull away the mask of the BNP leader who few would deny is an increasingly effective media performer.
Ever since Strictly Come Dancing took off in 2004 and saved Saturday nights on the BBC's flagship channel, the corporation has been convinced that twinkling toes are the key to success in the ratings.
So maybe its no surprise that I hear from the States that the BBC is to sign up the hip, young Fox-created American show 'So You Think You Can Dance'. The format is about to go into its sixth series Stateside, so it's a proven winner. What's more its hosted by a Brit, the former children's TV presenter Cat Deeley, 32.
'So you Think You Can Dance' is made by the entertainment impressario Simon Fuller's company 19 and the Lancastrian TV and film producer Nigel Lythgoe, who was a bit of a dancer in his day. A member of the BBC's Young Generation troupe he's now part of an Old Generation of very successful TV executives making lots of money out of dance-based formats, having choreographed 500 TV shows.
The interesting thing about the BBC spending its money on this show is that it's far less corny than Strictly (or the American NBC equivalent Dance with the Stars) and is aimed at a streetwise audience of under 35s - in America it attracts high numbers of young black female viewers. It's a show that celebrates good choreography - rather than celebrities making fun of themselves - and it's more Beyonce than Brucie.
So maybe its no surprise that I hear from the States that the BBC is to sign up the hip, young Fox-created American show 'So You Think You Can Dance'. The format is about to go into its sixth series Stateside, so it's a proven winner. What's more its hosted by a Brit, the former children's TV presenter Cat Deeley, 32.
'So you Think You Can Dance' is made by the entertainment impressario Simon Fuller's company 19 and the Lancastrian TV and film producer Nigel Lythgoe, who was a bit of a dancer in his day. A member of the BBC's Young Generation troupe he's now part of an Old Generation of very successful TV executives making lots of money out of dance-based formats, having choreographed 500 TV shows.
The interesting thing about the BBC spending its money on this show is that it's far less corny than Strictly (or the American NBC equivalent Dance with the Stars) and is aimed at a streetwise audience of under 35s - in America it attracts high numbers of young black female viewers. It's a show that celebrates good choreography - rather than celebrities making fun of themselves - and it's more Beyonce than Brucie.
Mark Thompson, the BBC director general, is to oversee a "thorough review" into whether the corporation is "the right size" and what areas it should concentrate its resources on in future.
This review, outlined in an open letter to licence payers by the BBC Trust chariman Sir Michael Lyons today, is clearly an acknowledgement of the concerns across commercial media that the BBC has become too big.
The pain of privately-run media has become increasingly acute as the advertising downturn has forced down profits and led to extensive job cuts. This week the commercial radio sector has complained about Radio 2 and Radio 1 "squeezing" the market and reducing access to the key 25-45 demographic demanded by advertisers.
The replacement of Terry Wogan by Chris Evans is seen as part of that.
At the same time print based media is worried that the strength of bbc.co.uk makes it almsot impossible to monetise the online content of magazine and newspaper businesses.
At the Edinburgh Television Festival at the end of last month, News Corp's James Murdoch described the BBC's ambitions as "chilling". The review of the BBC's scale, to be conducted by Thompson, was agreed by the corporation's executive and the BBC Trust, the governing body, back in June, so well ahead of the Murdoch attack.
Nonetheless it is a sign that the BBC is starting to acknowledge that the growth across multiple media platforms of a publicly-funded organisation may not be the good thing that licence fee payers might at first assume.
