Heritage tourism contributes £20bn to UK economy

March 8th, 2010 - 
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A new report published today, commissioned by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), reveals for the first time the scale of the heritage tourism industry in the UK, estimating its GDP contribution to be £20.6 billion.

The research establishes that the sector makes a bigger contribution to UK GDP than the advertising, car manufacturing or film industries.

Building on work carried out for VisitBritain, the report, Investing in success: Heritage and the UK tourism economy, demonstrates that heritage is a major motivation behind the tourism expenditure of both overseas and domestic visitors. It shows that the heritage tourism sector, including historic buildings, museums, parks and the countryside, directly supports an estimated 195,000 full-time equivalent jobs.

Jenny Abramsky, Chair of Heritage Lottery Fund has said:

‘We now have the figures to prove that heritage packs a substantial economic punch. Last year, domestic and overseas holiday visitor numbers grew as the wider UK economy was shrinking. Our museums, historic sites and landscapes, are proving to be an immense and essential attraction, bringing in new visitors and boosting local economies.  As we all look to economic recovery, we must keep investing in heritage tourism so that it continues to flourish, bringing with it key economic benefits’.

Key points in the research report

  • Over 10 million holiday trips are made by oversees visitors to the UK each year with 4 in 10 leisure visitors citing heritage as the primary motivation for their trip to the UK – more than any other single factor.
  • Heritage tourism is a £12.4bn a year industry. This is the annual amount spent not just at heritage attractions themselves (e.g. the cost of entrance to a historic site or in a museum shop) but also the broader amount of spending that can be reasonably said is ‘motivated’ by the desire to visit heritage attractions (e.g. visiting a restaurant or staying at accommodation).
  • Domestic tourism or the ‘staycation’ is the main component of this expenditure; of the annual £12.4billion spent on heritage-based tourism, 60% comes from UK residents on day trips and UK holidays.
  • £7.3billion of heritage expenditure is based on visits to built heritage attractions and museums, with the bigger £12.4billion including visits to parks and the countryside as well.
  • The direct GDP contribution of heritage tourism – the wages and profits earned by tourism businesses, such as hotels, restaurants and shops, as well as heritage attractions themselves – is estimated at £7.4bn a year. Once economic multiplier impacts are added – such as the income earned by suppliers to tourism businesses – the total GDP contribution of heritage tourism is £20.6bn a year.
  • Tourism has the potential to be one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy over the next decade, and the appeal of heritage will be vital to that growth.

Sandie Dawe MBE, Chief Executive of VisitBritain commented:

‘Heritage tourism is the UK’s 5th largest industry. Our heritage economy is vibrant and a crucially important part not just of the £114 billion visitor economy but of our local, regional and national economies as well. VisitBritain’s research in 32 countries around the world reveals that our core strength as a visitor destination is our heritage, history, pageantry and culture.’

Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage, said:

‘HLF’s current report successfully demonstrates the importance of heritage tourism to the UK economy. In times of economic difficulty, heritage tourism has proven its enduring popularity. As we come out of recession, we must continue to build on this positive position.”

The Heritage Lottery Fund has invested £4.4billion in the UK’s heritage since 1994. Over the past five years, the organisation has carried out extensive research into the impacts of completed projects including a series of visitor surveys and economic-impact case studies. The current report demonstrated the value of the Lottery Fund as follows:

  • visit numbers typically increase by more than 50% following an HLF-funded project
  • 88% of visitors rate the value for money of HLF’s investment as either ‘good’ or ‘excellent’.
  • an estimated 32,000 jobs have been sustained in the tourism sector as a direct result of HLF funding
  • every £1million of HLF funding leads to an increase in tourism revenues for regional economies of £4.2million over 10 years.

You can read the report in full HERE, the FT’s coverage HERE and more about the HLF at www.hlf.org.uk.

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DCMS halves National Heritage Memorial Fund grant

March 3rd, 2010 - 
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The National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) has confirmed that it has been notified by DCMS that its grant in aid allocation for 2010/11 will be reduced from £10million per annum to £5million per annum.

The NHMF is the only fund dedicated to saving the most important heritage at risk of loss to the nation. The many objects, buildings and landscapes it has saved over the last 30 years stand as a memorial to those who have given their lives for our country.

Carole Souter, Chief Executive of the NHMF, has said:

‘We understand the real pressures facing the DCMS but we are very disappointed in the reduction to the National Heritage Memorial Fund next year.  However, DCMS has indicated that it may be possible to top-up the Fund either this year, or during the course of next year, and we very much hope that they will be able to do so.

‘Such a significant reduction – 50 per cent – means we face the very real prospect of seeing parts of our national heritage lost forever. During 2010 -11 we are due to make staged payments for past grant commitments so our budgets were already stretched.  Given the applications we now know are coming to us and the current volume of export stopped items, the pressures on our budget are likely to be even more severe.

‘Our Board will be discussing the implications of this reduction for the grant awards budget in 2010 when they meet later in March.  Trustees have in the past used the NHMF endowment to save particularly outstanding parts of our heritage and, if the situation were critical, could consider doing so again.’

www.nhmf.org.uk

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News Summary: 1st March 2010

March 1st, 2010 - 
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Libraries

Libraries are among the services “most vulnerable” to widespread cuts across local councils, with a BBC survey estimating 25,000 public sector jobs could be lost around the country (more HERE). More than 70% of the 49 councils that responded to the survey predicted spending cuts of between 5% and 20%. The BBC reports that:

‘… services such as libraries… face cuts as councils battle the “perfect storm” of recession – falling revenues and higher demand’

Local Government Association deputy chairman Richard Kemp has said:

‘We know that if the government ring-fences schools, health, defence and the police, other services will need to take a big hit. The LGA view is that everything else will face a cut of 16.5% in real terms. Others believe it could be 18.5%.’

The Guardian reports HERE that under a 10-point government plan to help councils cut spending – in response to the BBC survey – suggests that “arts and leisure services will be most vulnerable to cuts while homelessness, children’s social services and planning are likely to be more protected”.

Meanwhile Tony Travers, director of the Greater London group at the London School of Economics, says:

‘Nothing like this has happened for a generation… To minimise the impacts on the public… would require massive efficiencies in all service, higher charges for many and sharing back-office staff with other public bodies.’ More in The Telegraph HERE.

Heritage

The Times reports fears that historic treasures worth millions will be lost to the country after ‘the Government quietly halved its grant to the “fund of last resort” for heritage.’ Treasury pressure has forced the DCMS to reduce the £10 million previously allocated to the National Heritage Memorial Fund for next year to £5 million, meaning that the fund’s acquisition budget for next year is now in effect down to £1.7 million because £3.3 million of its funds are already committed to assisting the £50 million purchase of Titian’s Diana and Actaeon from the Duke of Sutherland. More HERE.

Radio

In a strongly worded letter to Mark Thompson, the Director-General, representatives of the music industry have said they were ’surprised and alarmed’ by last week’s reports that the BBC is to close 6Music. Geoff Taylor and Tony Wandsworth; chief executive and chairman of the British Phonographic Industry have said:

‘6 Music has established itself as a vital platform providing exposure to a wide range of emerging British music talent… There is no other radio station that is remotely comparable in scale or depth for showcasing new music... It is therefore vital to the artistic and cultural diversity of this country that the role of 6 Music as a taste-maker for the airwaves is preserved.’ More in the Times HERE; and in our Weekend News Summary HERE.

Whilst The Guardian thinks the 6 Music announcement has reminded people why they pay the licence fee, HERE; The Telegraph thinks the licence fee could be scrapped altogether under a Labour government, in response to Ben Bradshaw’s view that there is ‘good reason’ to have a debate as to whether the £3.6 billion annual licence fee is the ‘best funding mechanism’ for the BBC HERE. Further coverage of the BBC’s strategic review, or ‘election manifesto’, can be found in The Guardian HERE.

Tech

CeriseClub, a French internet company has said that illegal file sharing is a ‘national sport’. Southwest France is said to hide one of the highest rates of software piracy in the developed world. Poitou-Charentes, for instance, may be famed for its goat cheese, but it has been hailed by La Charente Libre, the local daily newspaper, as “champion of counterfeit software”.

Studies suggest that 42 per cent of software programmes are copied illegally in France, compared with 26 per cent in Britain and 27 per cent in Germany. In the southwest, the piracy rate was 49 per cent. The cost to business in France is estimated at £1.8 billion — by far the highest in the European Union, driven by an attitude of “Microsoft makes billions. It can afford to lose a few euros here and there”. More in The Times HERE, which also covers today the need to save music from “the twin ravages of illegal downloading and a lack of strategic direction” HERE; and the disproportionate effect of sharing on newcomers’ earnings HERE.

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Weekend News Summary 27th-28th February 2010

March 1st, 2010 - 
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Education

An influential group of leading academics and cultural figures has issued a stark warning that they fear for the future of the arts and humanities in British universities. A letter to the Observer (see HERE) signed by the directors of major arts institutions and a number of university vice-chancellors, claims that funding cuts and a decision to focus on the sciences have left subjects such as philosophy, literature, history, languages and art facing “worrying times”. Without urgent action the country’s intellectual heritage is in danger of being diminished, they conclude, and, with reference to Labour’s decision to run tertiary education from the Business department:

“There is more to citizenship than business and skills… People’s complexity comes from their language, identities, histories, faiths and cultures.” More in The Observer HERE and HERE.

Broadcasting

BBC chiefs effectively wrote off £150m of licence-payers’ money spent on an online education service, BBC Jam, after it was axed, and officials decided efforts to recoup the cash by selling off the material “wasn’t worth the candle” reports The Independent on Sunday HERE.

It has also emerged that leaked proposals by Mark Thompson to axe the digital radio station 6Music have set the BBC’s director-general on a collision course with the BBC Trust. Two weeks ago, the trust published a report into 6Music which concluded the music station was “well liked by its listeners” and its audience had “grown faster than any other BBC digital radio-only service”. It emerged last week that Thompson’s proposals, to be published next month, recommend closing the station down. Other proposals include shutting the Asian Network, slashing the website’s staff by 25 per cent, selling off magazines such as Radio Times and Top Gear and capping sports rights at 8 per cent of budget, or £300m. The news that 6Music is in danger has met with vocal opposition, despite an audience of fewer than 700,000, according to the latest Rajar figures. More in The Observer HERE, HERE and HERE; Independent on Sunday HERE and HERE; FT HERE.

This Wednesday’s full-year results presentation from ITV will be the platform for Archie Norman (Adam Crozier’s start date is yet to be confirmed) to present his plan for the broadcaster’s future – including a roadmap away from the Michael Grade era. The results will be far from woeful; analysts predict pre-tax profits doubling from £34.7m to around £67m-£88m. Numis Securities has forecast a pre-tax profit of around £75m based on the belief that advertising recovered dramatically in the last few months of 2009. The Sunday Times HERE; Telegraph HERE.

Funding

A host of internationally flavoured arts events in London in the coming months are being supported by companies that intend to use cultural links to support their business interests in emerging markets. HSBC, which promotes itself as the bank that best appreciates the world’s diversity, is emphasising that message by sponsoring this summer’s Brazil festival on the South Bank, about which we’ve blogged HERE. Marah Winn-Moon, HSBC’s head of cultural sponsorship, said:

“It is a great opportunity to bring clients in with a cultural hook, and then to start talking to them about doing business in those countries too”.

Overseas companies are also exploiting London’s vibrant arts scene to promote their business in an international context. Nigeria’s Guaranty Trust became the first African corporation to support art in Britain when it sponsored Tate Britain’s current exhibition of paintings by Chris Ofili, a painter of Nigerian heritage. The bank also sponsors the next installation at Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth, the British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare’s “Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle”, a reproduction of HMS Victory bedecked with sails decorated with African patterns. The work will be unveiled on May 24. Segun Agbaje, the bank’s deputy chief executive officer, said that arts sponsorship was an opportunity:

“… to give people another perspective on Africa, to talk about its heritage instead of droughts all the time”. More in The FT HERE.

Theatre

Sir David Hare, an associate director of the National Theatre, has said theatre lags behind other creative art forms, such as the novel, when it came to women and equality of expression. Theatres should realise that women’s writing for the theatre had reached a “tipping point”, he says:

“I don’t think the repertory of most theatres at the moment is reflecting what seems to be happening in terms of the most interesting new theatre…We would hope to see management of theatres reflecting where we think the creativity in playwriting is coming from… There’s no doubt that the structure of the theatre is plainly male… The rough and tumble of the theatre is like politics to a degree – it’s a macho business.” More in The Telegraph HERE.

Art

Some of the world’s most important paintings may be lost to the nation because there are no funds available to keep them here following the purchase of two works by Titian for £100m. The latest artwork poised to join the exodus of masterpieces is St John the Evangelist by the Italian Old Master Domenichino. Despite being in the UK for the past 100 years, the painting is likely to leave the country. Professor David Ekserdijian, of the Government’s Reviewing Committee has said:

“It is the best work by the artist remaining in private hands and its departure from the UK would be lamentable.”

Works to be lost from the country include:

Raphael’s Head of a Muse The “exquisite” drawing from 1510 – a preparation for a commission by Pope Julius II – looks likely to be on its way to America after being bought for a record £29.2m, even though “every possible effort should be made to raise enough money to keep it in the country”.

Turner’s Pope’s Villa at Twickenham One of Turner’s most important works is already in America after an export ban last year failed to find any institutions willing or able to pay the £5.4m the 1808 painting was worth.

Domenichino’s St John the Evangelist It will be “lamentable” if this £9.2m work from 1621-29 left the country after more than 100 years, according to the Reviewing Committee. Lamentable, but likely.

Works saved include:

Titian’s Diana and Actaeon A six-month campaign persuaded the public, the Scottish government and the Heritage Lottery Fund to part with £50m to buy the Old Master’s work from the Duke of Sutherland last year. Fundraising is due to start shortly to raise the same sum for the companion painting, Diana and Callisto, by 2012. Both were created between 1556 and 1559.

Turner’s Blue Rigi One of the finest watercolours by one of Britain’s greatest painters, an 1842 view of a Swiss mountain, was saved in 2007 after the Tate raised £4.95m. More in The Independent on Sunday HERE.

Banksy’s undoubted knack for exploiting the feverish interest his anonymity provokes has certainly created a lot of hype around the documentary Exit. The point is, says Andrew Johnson in The Independent on Sunday HERE, it isn’t really about him. It’s more about the creation of another street artist, Mr Brainwash, and an exposé of the art market and “suckers” with too much money who want to be part of the latest thing.

Tech

In August 2009, it was hard to move around Beijing without seeing an advert for Google. China was awash with the logo of a company whose motto is “Don’t Be Evil”, and the scale of the investment was a palpable endorsement of China’s vital importance to the economics of any global company. Skip forward to January this year, and an official blogpost announced summarily that the censored results that China demanded from Google were no longer compatible with the company’s philosophy. Off the record, employees said the company would pull out of China imminently.

So did the search giant really decide to eschew profits in favour of a defence of free speech? Or did it realise it would never be the biggest search engine in China and simply cut its losses? The question that matters is simple: what does Google stand for? More in The Telegraph HERE. And the FT asks, having acquired power over those it freed, is Google now a monopoly HERE and how ethically is its power used HERE.

In the week when three Google execs have been convicted and awarded six-month suspended sentences for allowing a clip of an autistic boy being bullied to play on Google Video (see more HERE), The Observer asks HERE, When anyone can have their say, what use is the stuff that comes out the other end? What can be done with it, and who is going to be in charge of quality control when things go wrong? And Microsoft has attacked ‘aggressive’ Google, as covered in The Sunday Telegraph HERE.

Opera

The people of Thurrock are being promised a piece of Covent Garden, complete with the sparkling glamour of its greatest operatic divas and prima ballerinas. On Tuesday, the Royal Opera House will officially take over the centre of an empty 14-acre site near the Thames in Essex. Tony Hall, Royal Opera’s chief executive has said:

“I love the fact Covent Garden is going to do something in a place that is half an hour away from London by train, but could be miles and miles away in every other way… It is a place that is relatively deprived, for the south-east, and that has a history of manufacturing that makes it the right place for us.” More in The Observer HERE.

Design
The Independent on Sunday has picked up two top honours in the prestigious Best of News Design awards. Organised by the Society for News Design, the professional organisation for the world’s graphic designers who work in the industry, the awards recognise the best from around the world in newspaper production. More in The Independent on Sunday HERE.

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Anti-slavery treasures’ export deferred until April…

February 25th, 2010 - 
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Culture Minister, Margaret Hodge, has placed a temporary export bar on an archive of correspondence addressed to the British political radical, Thomas Walker, providing a last chance to raise the money to keep this important archive (Bonhams Lot No: 98) in the UK.

The move responds to a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, administered by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). The Committee recommended that the export decision be deferred on the grounds that the archive is of outstanding significance for the study of British political history in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Thomas Walker (1749-1817) was a Manchester merchant and political radical who fought for civil liberty, constitutional reform and the abolition of the slave trade. His archive, largely unknown to scholars, reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of radical Britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; comprising over 160 letters addressed to Walker from luminaries of the day such as Thomas Paine, Joseph Priestley and Thomas Clarkson.

The letters provide an extraordinary insight into British life during a period of intense industrial, political, intellectual and cultural activity. Walker had connections with many of the leading political thinkers of his day and it is this interconnectedness which makes the archive so special.

Collections of political correspondence relating to specific individuals from this time have rarely survived; most having been purposefully destroyed at the time – to have been found in possession of seditious material would have risked the recipient’s prosecution.

Lord Inglewood, Chairman of the Reviewing Committee has said:

“This fascinating archive is significant for study because it provides an insight into how the themes of liberty were being explored in Britain at this time. It is also of especial significance to the history of Manchester, demonstrating that major national campaigns, as that for the abolition of slavery, derived power from the regions.”

The decision on the export licence application for the archive will be deferred for a period ending on 24 April, inclusive. This period may be extended until 24 June inclusive if a serious intention to raise funds with a view to making an offer to purchase the archive at the recommended price of £93,600 is expressed.

Further details about the archive can be found in the Bonhams’ auction catalogue HERE.

Anybody interested in making an offer to purchase the archive should contact the owner’s agent through:

The Secretary

The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest

Museums, Libraries and Archives Council

Wellcome Wolfson Building

165 Queen’s Gate

South Kensington

London SW7 5HD

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News Summary: 22nd February 2010

February 22nd, 2010 - 
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Heritage

The Abbey Road recording studios could be listed within a week as part of a move by English Heritage, which is standing by a recommendation it made in 2003 that the studios should be given Grade II listed status. In the recommendation to ministers the organisation concluded:

“The Abbey Road Studios warrant listing at Grade II for their outstanding cultural interest as the world’s earliest purpose-built, and still the most famous, recording studios… [The studios] possess huge cultural interest as well as substantially intact recording studio spaces interiors and should be listed.” More in The Times HERE.

The move is in response to the widely held belief that the studios were to be sold by EMI. However, EMI allayed fears of a sale yesterday, saying it had rejected a bid for the historic building last year but was in discussions about a “revitalisation” project to bring new life to the studios:

“At all times, these plans have focused on providing access to artists and, where possible, members of the public… In mid-2009, we did receive an offer to buy Abbey Road for in excess of £30m but this was rejected since we believe that Abbey Road should remain in EMI’s ownership.” More in The Guardian HERE; Independent HERE; Times HERE; Telegraph HERE; and FT HERE.

A major celebration of the work of Gustav Mahler and a return of a Venezuelan youth orchestra that took London by storm last year (for example, HERE), are among the highlights of the forthcoming classical music season at the Southbank Centre. More in The Guardian HERE.

Tech

The spate of internet attacks that hit Google (background of which you can see in our January news summaries, for example HERE and HERE) has, according to the New York Times HERE, been traced to two colleges in China. Shanghai Jiaotong University is well regarded as a centre for computer studies, and has an extensive information security programme that boasts “high level talent” and, says the NYT, has links to major military research projects. The other college is the Lanxiang Vocational School. While the Chinese authorities have not commented on the report, a member of staff from Lanxiang has said:

“We did not know Google was hacked before the New York Times contacted us – when they called, we told them we know nothing but they still made the story up… Our students are middle school graduates, and we train them to use software like Photoshop. If our students are so skilled they can hack Google, then what are they here for? …I hope the media can be cautious about this report… We don’t want to worsen US-China relations or draw national attention.” More in the Guardian HERE; Independent HERE; Times HERE; and Telegraph HERE.

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News Summary: 19th February 2010

February 19th, 2010 - 
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Fashion

Harold Tillman, chairman of the British Fashion Council, called for a minute’s silence in memory of the late Alexander McQueen, at the opening of London Fashion Week, at Somerset House, this morning.

“His impact on London and this international fashion industry has been extraordinary. And he will be sorely missed… He proved that this industry and this city is one of opportunity, he left school with one O-Level and, with a good mix of determination, hard work and genius, he became and will remain one of London’s leading lights… To ensure London, his home city, continues to grow as a global fashion centre will be a fitting tribute to this brilliant man.”

London Fashion Week has also put up a memorial wall for fashion press and buyers to leave messages for the much-loved designer. More in The Independent  HERE and Times HERE.

So many designers (more than 40) are planning to live stream their shows from this season’s fashion week catwalks – to include Burberry’s 3D live streaming on Tuesday, that the British Fashion Council has had to produce the world’s first digital fashion schedule. More in The Independent HERE; Times HERE; and Telegraph HERE

Music

Another Abbey Road update today as Andrew Lloyd Webber has announced that he would like to buy the studio. EMI’s private equity parent Terra Firma is said to be hoping the north London site could raise tens of millions of pounds for the embattled music group. Following the National Trust’s statement that it will consider buying the studios to preserve them for the nation, a spokesman for Lloyd Webber has now confirmed that  too was “very interested” in buying Abbey Road studios:

“He first recorded there in 1967 with Tim Rice. Andrew has since recorded most of his musicals there, from Jesus Christ Superstar to his new musical Love Never Dies… He thinks it is vital that the studios are saved for the future of the music industry in the UK.” More in The Guardian  HERE; Independent HERE; and Telegraph HERE.

Broadcasting and Publishing

We reported yesterday on the BBC’s announcement of a new range of free applications that will deliver its online services to mobile devices, starting with BBC News in April. The Newspaper Publishers Association (NPA) has now issued a statement complaining that the BBC’s ambitions are a threat to an important source of revenue for commercial media organisations; as people increasingly receive their news via Apple iPhones and other handheld devices. NPA director, David Newell has said:

“Not for the first time, the BBC is preparing to muscle into a nascent market and trample over the aspirations of commercial news providers. At a time when the BBC is facing unprecedented levels of criticism over its expansion, and when the wider industry is investing in new models, it is extremely disappointing that the Corporation plans to launch services that would throw into serious doubt the commercial sector’s ability to make a return on its investment, and therefore its ability to support quality journalism.” More in The Guardian HERE; Independent HERE; and FT HERE.

There has also been some reaction against the BBC’s plan to get the Pope to record a ‘Thought for the Day’. Terry Sanderson, the National Secular Society president, has said:

“I think the BBC under Mark Thompson is going to go into overdrive and we are going to have Pope, Pope, Pope, driven down our throats… We cannot help but suspect that Mark Thompson’s recent visit to the Vatican for what were called ‘high-level talks’ with Vatican officials might well have been to plan this kind of propaganda exercise.” More in The Independent HERE.

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News Summary: 17th February 2010

February 17th, 2010 - 
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Brit Awards 2010

It was all about the ‘fame monster’ Gaga wasn’t it really, and so, in turn, is today’s coverage. The British music industry chose to award the 23-year-old, whose “Poker Face” single was the biggest-selling song of 2009, with the gongs for International Breakthrough; International Female Solo Artist; and International Album and you can read more in The Guardian HERE; Independent HERE; Times HERE; and Telegraph HERE.

Here’s the rest of the night’s wins:

British male solo artist Dizzee Rascal

British female solo artist Lily Allen

British breakthrough act JLS

British group Kasabian

British Album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, Kasabian

British single Beat Again, JLS

International male solo artist Jay-Z

International female solo artist Lady GaGa

International breakthrough act Lady Gaga

International album The Fame, Lady GaGa

British producer Paul Epworth

Critics’ choice Ellie Goulding

Outstanding contribution to music Robbie Williams

Best Brits performance of its 30-year history Spice Girls, (1997) “Wannabe”/”Who Do You Think You Are?”

Best Brits album of 30 years (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, Oasis

Tech

Google is being threatened with legal action over the launch of its new social network, Google Buzz, amid furious claims that the service breaches users’ privacy. A week after launching the service with great fanfare and with high hopes that it could lure internet users’ attention away from Facebook and Twitter, Google finds itself embroiled in a technical and public relations nightmare. The pioneering internet company again apologised to users yesterday, and said it was working round the clock to roll out additional alterations to Buzz, on top of emergency changes imposed late last week and over the weekend.

Users revolted when they realised that their contacts could now see who they had been emailing – something that could reveal everything from private business relationships to romantic affairs. Shelly Palmer, founder of Advanced Media Ventures, has said:

“Anyone who understands the Google mindset could not have expected them to get this right… Everywhere they go, they try to apply mechanistic efficiency. They looked at Facebook and said, ‘You have to invite people? How ridiculous! We’ll just look at who you email most and hook up those people right now.’ This wasn’t a malicious attack on your privacy. It was just Google’s attempt to create a social network with no fuss.” More in The Guardian HERE; Independent HERE; and Telegraph HERE.

Broadcasting

SeeSaw, a new television streaming service launches online today, bringing together shows from the BBC, Channel 4 and Five on a single site. SeeSaw went live with more than 3,000 hours of content and, unlike services such as BBC’s iPlayer or Channel 4’s 4oD, which broadcast their own content, has partnerships with BBC Worldwide, Channel 4, Five and independent companies who produce shows for ITV. John Keeling, the controller of SeeSaw, said:

“It’s like having an enormous buffet. You can either just snack on it and catch up on what you’ve missed, or gorge yourself with an entire season. It’s absolutely at your fingertips and your control.”

SeeSaw is currently free and funded by advertising revenue but in future it will introduce a pay-per-view service for top US dramas and other premium content. More in The Guardian HERE; Independent HERE; and Telegraph HERE.

The BBC has been accused of having a “total sense of humour failure” after banning its political editor, Nick Robinson, and other senior journalists from taking part in one of the corporation’s own entertainment programmes. The extraordinary situation relates to “The Bubble”, a new show whose format involves three comedians being cut off from the news for several days in a country house with no access to any media and then being asked to distinguish between authentic and fake news items. Both ITV News and Sky News have been happy to co-operate with BBC the series and supply it with news footage. The only BBC footage to appear will be archive material, even though the series is supposed to reflect stories of the week.

A spokesman for BBC News  has said:

“We are sure The Bubble on BBC Two will be extremely funny but BBC journalists will leave it to the comedians to do the comedy.” More in The Independent HERE.

Advertising

The Advertising Standards Authority have today ruled that eight TV adverts shown during an episode of Sherlock Holmes were “excessively strident” and breached the sound levels code. This followed a complaint from a viewer that the adverts were excessively noisy compared to the surrounding programme material, reflecting a long-standing issue for some TV watchers.

The ASA upheld the viewer’s complaint, saying the volume was “not well matched to the overall sound levels of the programme” but has also noted that complaints about noisy advertisements have gone down since rules were tightened up two years ago. More in the Guardian HERE; and Independent HERE.

Music

Sir Paul McCartney has told of his hopes that the famous Abbey Road Studios could be saved after reportedly being put up for sale by owner EMI. Sir Paul, who recorded most of the Beatles’ songs at Abbey Road, told BBC’s Newsnight:

“There are a few people who have been associated with the studio for a long time who were talking about mounting some bid to save it… I sympathise with them. I hope they can do something, it’d be great.

EMI – which counts Robbie Williams and Coldplay among its artists – posted a £1.75 billion loss for the year to March 2009 in accounts earlier this month. Recent recording advances and cheaper overseas studio facilities have added competitive pressure to Abbey Road and a sale of the studios would raise much needed cash for its struggling owner. More in The Guardian HERE; Independent HERE; and Telegraph HERE.

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Weekly email: 28/01/2010

February 2nd, 2010 - 
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Here’s this week’s news…

 

Tory Stuff

Ed spoke this week on cultural education at the Yehudi Menuhin school. He warned that: ‘We are losing sight of the key aims of cultural education in a blizzard of initiatives. What I would like to do is bring some coherence, stability and long-term strategy to the sector.

 

I want to be able to answer easily questions like: can my child learn a musical instrument, learn art, learn to dance, regardless of my income; if my child is talented, can I guarantee that they will be able to sustain their talent; will my child leave school with a solid cultural education, and therefore feel comfortable in engaging in the arts in all its forms?

 

In short, we need strategy and coherence from the centre, so that the considerable funds that are spent on music and dance education – more than £95 million annually – are spent efficiently and effectively.’ Full speech HERE. We are very interested to hear your contributions, so please do post them in the comments section, identifying who you are and which organisation you are from. There is a nice comment about the speech on LinkedIn HERE.

Jeremy is on Facebook, add him as a friend HERE We are resisting all obvious jokes

Creative Industries

Digital Economy Bill Day 5

Clauses 10 -18 were considered, full transcript on Hansard HERE A sixth day is scheduled for 3rd February. With discussions of the eagerly anticipated Clause 17 starting HERE Lord Howard spoke for our side, and pointed out HERE that the Government haven’t said what they want this power for, which makes it rather difficult for us to decide whether to support it or not. He also expressed our serious concerns about broad nature of the power and the use of a super affirmative resolution (that’s a super duper SI) and said that in its current form, we don’t support it. We would like to see the Government come back narrower definition of the power, and continue to discuss this with them.

Online Piracy

At the Oxford Media Convention, Stephen Timms, the ‘Digital Britain’ Minister, criticised rights holders for not moving fast enough to bring new business models to market. He said: ‘The space the legislation provides to develop those models will be important. But rights holders must get a move on. Legislation is not the whole solution to the problems. Rights holders need to develop new ways to make content available to people in formats that they want and at a fair price – reducing the incentive to break the law. Progress has been much too slow. We also need initiatives to educate people about why creativity deserves to be fairly rewarded.’ Er, we agree, more HERE ’

ITV

ITV have appointed Adam Crozier, the head of Royal Mail and former boss of the FA as its new chief executive. More HERE congratulations all round.

Congratulations to ITV and Sony Pictures TV, as analysis suggests Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? A TV format created in the UK is the most popular gameshow in the world more HERE.

BSkyB

Continue their downturn-defying financial performance: For the six months to the end of December, they have reported a revenue rise of 10% year on year to £2.9 billion. More HERE.

Video Games

The House of Lords Communications Committee has effectively backed TIGA’s campaign for Games Tax Relief in their report into The British Film and Television Industries published this week. The report says: “We recognise the claims of the videogames industry for support in the face of foreign government-subsidised competition, and recommend that the Government consider providing tax incentives for videogames production.” More HERE.

Speaking at the Westminster eForum on video games Ian Livingstone criticised the national news media’s tendency to stir up more panic surrounding violent content more

HERE Ed also spoke at this event, more HERE.

TIGA have said it is ludicrous to suggest that playing video games was responsible for an apparent increase in cases of rickets more HERE and HERE.

Technology

Derek Wyatt MP has created a ‘My MP’ App for the iPhone, yes really, a Beta version is available HERE

Local News

The CEO Trinity Mirror’s CEO called for the abolition of council newspapers at the Oxford Media Convention last week, HERE. Meanwhile, the Audit Commission wrote to Stephen Timms last week with their conclusions from research into this area. They say that ‘the money being spent by councils is not unreasonable, though they should always consider whether it provides good value. Few council publications are published sufficiently frequently to be viable media for most local advertising.’ The letter and the appendix are published HERE.

Newspapers

Congratulations to the Guardian.co.uk which has attracted nearly 37m users and breaks the record for a UK newspaper website according to their latest ABC stats. We don’t know where we’d be without it, frankly. More HERE.

Music

Congratulations to UK indie label XL, part of the Beggars group, on reaching a number 1 in the US album chart with Vampire Weekend’s second album Contra, more HERE.

iPad

Bringer of the eBooks revolution, possible saviour of the newspaper business, or an oversized iPhone? Views on this, and an explanation of the term ‘goldilocks device’ HERE

Arts and Heritage

Culture and Education

Ofsted have published a report into culture and education: ‘Learning: Creative approaches that raise standards’ more HERE which recognises the work of Creative Partnerships and the impact of creative learning practices in schools in improving standards and pupils’ personal development.

Creativity, Culture and Education have welcomed Ofsted’s recognition that using arts and culture across in learning raise attainment levels, improve attendance and increase pupil motivation  – particularly for schools in challenging circumstances, more HERE

New Deal of the Mind

£1.45 million announced for 223 jobs, 167 of which will be arts jobs across 14 London boroughs in a project run by new Deal of the Mind. There include design assistants, marketing and press assistants and fundraisers at organisations including The British Library, the Lyric Hammersmith, the Young Vic and the Royal Court, more HERE

Libraries

A new research report conducted by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) highlights the crucial role public libraries play in supporting the delivery of the national digital priorities set out by the Government and Digital Inclusion Champion, Martha Lane Fox. More HERE and HERE.

Meanwhile, a commission to examine the future of school library provision in England is being launched by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and the National Literacy Trust (NLT) it will be chaired by Estelle Morris, more HERE

New funding opportunity for libraries to support digital inclusion has been announced in December’s Smarter Government report. Library services have their chance to bid for new funding, thanks to a new £30 million government investment in UK online centres. More information about the funding, different models, criteria and obligations HERE.

The Charted Institute of Library and Information Professionals has responded to the Government’s (latest) libraries review, HERE.

Heritage

English Heritage is suggesting that refurbishing old school buildings is often the best use of resources and the most sustainable way of modernising them and have published two new papers that highlight the value and potential of older schools. We think this is an interesting idea, well worth exploring, more HERE and HERE.

New grants from HLF have just been announced, Including a £3m grant to the Giant’s Causeway World Heritage Site in Northern Ireland and £3.7m for Liverpool’s pioneering Florence Institute for Boys, more HERE.

Theatre

Great news for theatre: total box office receipts for 2009 were up to £504,765,690; marking the seventh record-breaking year in a row. What’s more, while in previous years it has been musicals that have driven increases in box office takings, in 2009 the rise was almost entirely accounted for by the performance of drama at the box office. Led by the success of shows such as War Horse, Waiting for Godot and Calendar Girls, plays were 26% up on 2008 levels, while opera, dance and entertainments were up 7%. Musicals were 2% down over the year more. Congratulations all round, more HERE.

In Parliament

Parliamentary Questions

Just 77% of the Scottish population can currently access DAB HERE

DCMS considering proposals from Camelot to enter the commercial market for bill payments HERE

The largest proportion of the general public view the Arts Council ‘neither favourably nor unfavourably’ HERE

Digital Economy Bill

The Digital Economy Bill has reached Clause 9 in the Committee Stage of the Lords HERE

EDMs

EDM 689 – Licensing Act 2003 HERE

EDM 671 – Publication of salaries and remuneration packages of BBC executives HERE

EDM 666 – Live Music Bill HERE

Where we’ve been and who we’ve seen

The Stephen Lawrence Centre, the RSC education team, Battersea Power station, English Heritage, Asian Music Circuit, Southbank Sinfonia Every Good Boy Deserves Favour at the National Theatre, UK Music, Enron at the Noel Coward Theatre, The Yehudi Menuhin School, the Performer Alliance APPG were everybody supported an exemption to the Licensing Act for small venues HERE, the Globe, Clore Duffield Foundation, the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Foyle Foundation, Fidelity UK Foundation, Michael Van der Ham, Christopher Kane, Erdem, the London College of Fashion MA show at the V&A, Clare Delmar, Channel 4, ITV, STV, Johnson Press, Google, Yahoo, Ebay, Facebook, OFT.

 

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Weekend News Summary: 30th/ 31st January 2010

February 1st, 2010 - 
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Poetry

Ruth Padel – Oxford’s first female Professor of Poetry until a dirty-tricks scandal led her to resign only 9 days in – talks about sex, lies, poetry, and her ‘moment of lunacy’, in the The Times’ Saturday Review HERE. The Padel interview formed part of Saturday Review’s Poetry Special, which also ran pieces by The Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, on reading for Haiti and ‘the music of being human’ HERE; Christopher Reid, on his surprise Costa win for an ‘intimate expression of love and grief’ HERE; and former Laureate, Andrew Motion on disproving the contention that there is no audience for poetry; stimulating its teaching in schools and generally extending audience reach HERE. Motion talks of the success of The Poetry Archive (www.poetryarchive.org), which enjoys a regular monthly audience of a quarter of a million people, listening to about 1.25 million pages of poetry.

Theatre

The news just keeps getting better and better for the West End. Further to last week’s announcement of a record-breaking box for 2009 (see our coverage at the time HERE), Sir Cameron Mackintosh has announced his plans to use some of his £635m fortune to endow each of his seven London theatres with enough cash to ensure that their lifespans outlast his own. The lucky theatres now safely tucked under this super-sheltering wing are the Prince Edward; Prince of Wales; Novello; Queen’s; Gielgud; Wyndham’s and Noel Coward. More in The Sunday Times HERE.

Heritage

 

English Heritage received a last-minute appeal on Friday to save The Foundry – a bar, community radio station, and performance venue. The building has played a key part in the contemporary arts boom and features graffiti and murals by the likes of Banksy, Jake and Dino Chapman and Damian Hirst. Despite the protestations of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, developers plan to replace the building with a hotel. More HERE.

Following the bulldozing of the 1936 Art Deco Regal cinema in King’s Street, and fears that more that 20 others of Britain’s 1930’s cinemas could face a similar fate, David Trevor-Jones, chairman of the Cinema Theatre Association, has said:

‘We’re losing swathes and it’s a tragedy. We live in a world of corporations and cheap architecture, but these buildings take you to another place. They’re all about grandeur and supreme fantasy… I think cinemas are still undervalued; no town would willingly lose its Victorian theatre, but the same isn’t the case for iconic cinema buildings… They’re part of our social and cultural history, but they have no protection.’ More in the Independent on Sunday HERE.

 

Television

David Lister writes about this week’s recording of the South Bank Show Awards (which we covered at the time HERE) at which consensus set around accusing ITV of philistinism for axing The South Bank Show. ‘But if ITV now seems a lost cause on serious arts programming, I can’t say I always get a warm glow from the approach of the BBC or Channel 4’ voices The Independent HERE.

‘Godless liberals’ are beside themselves with horror as a result of an opinion poll suggesting Fox News is the most trusted news operation in America; 49% of Americans trust Fox. Great analysis of the success of ‘news-o-tainment’ in the Guardian HERE.

Rock films look set to take on TV talent shows, and what Peter Hook is calling their ‘singing prostitutes’. Ten films chronicling the lives of musicians have been released or gone into production in recent months, to include the stories of John Lennon, Ian Dury and Joe Meek so far. This week sees the release of Oil City Confidential, an account of Canvey Island pub-rockers, Dr Feelgood. The film’s director, Julien Temple, says ‘We want film to provoke questions… Why can’t we come up with this kind of passion anymore? Now it’s the blandest of the bland who reach whole new audiences on shows like the X-factor’. More in The Observer HERE.

Adam Crozier could get £15m if he successfully turns around the fortunes of ITV. He will get a basic salary just below the £800,000 of his predecessor, but his annual bonus has the potential to reach more than double that. The biggest incentive though takes the form of a parcel of shares he will be awarded on arrival, but will only be allowed to collect after two years at the helm, making 2014 and 2015 the key years in the plan. More in The Observer HERE and The Sunday Times HERE. Assessment of Crozier’s chances of success can be found in the Observer HERE and Sunday Times HERE; The option of an ITV pay-per-view in The Sunday Telegraph HERE; And The Observer cites the latest threat of an ITV break-up bid, posed by rebel shareholders HERE.

TalkTalk is to launch television and mobile services, informed not least by the rapid maturation trend in the fixed-line broadband market and the fact that TalkTalk’s rivals in the broadband market already have TV services; BT, Virgin Media and BSkyB all sell broadband and phone services in discounted bundles. TalkTalk is involved in Project Canvass, a BBC-led consortium preparing to launch an internet-connected TV set-top box before the end of the year. More in the FT Weekend HERE.

Film

Highlights include Pulp Fiction; The English Patient; Good Will Hunting; and The Queen – could it really now be the end for Miramax? The studio is credited with bringing arthouse to huge audiences, but now reports have it that it is to scrapped by Disney. Disney claims it is not closing the business entirely; it is still in possession of six unreleased films, including The Tempest, with Helen Mirren as Prospero. Co-founder Harvey Weinstein has responded by saying he and his brother would ‘love the opportunity’ to buy back the name – an amalgam of their parents, Miriam and Max. More HERE.

The first black Disney heroine is greeted as ‘an opportunity missed’ by The Observer HERE.

Digital media

We covered immediate reaction to the hyper-hyped launch of the iPad HERE. Come Saturday calm, and the latest tablet is in receipt of a positive, if somewhat muted, review in the FT Weekend, which concludes that it will find some degree of success, and help define the emerging media tablet market HERE. Elsewhere in the FT ‘charismatic returnee’ Steve Jobs is observed, to the deduction ‘if his record is anything to go by, consumers could yet find it hard to live without their iPads’ HERE. The potential trickle-down effect for apps companies is covered in The Sunday Times HERE.

With the iPad still two months away though, there remain many unanswered questions. For example, in relation to digital rights management (DRM), it is unclear whether Apple intends to add software which could render consumers unable to transfer content across devices; critics of DRM argue such restrictions prevent consumers ever really owning their books HERE. Yet might it be the case that as Apple usurp not only other major companies, but also consumer choice, their legions of fans will grow only more loyal still? Yes, says The Telegraph, which supposes Apple is taking over the world HERE, The Observer agrees, but fears this will be the realisation of an Orwellian nightmare HERE.

But can the iPad rescue newspapers from ‘oblivion’, in the words of the Guardian Editor in Chief? Absolutely not, responds The Observer HERE, citing the fact that, against industry losses of about $10bn last year, the newspaper US subscription and advertising revenue across all existing e-readers and ‘at a mighty optimistic stretch’, reached new circulation funds of only $325m a year, plus $150m in ads. The Observer is however much more optimistic about the potential of ‘a paywall nobody will notice’; which comes bundled with pay-tv packages HERE.

Media freedom

Standing against the ‘creeping’ culture of secrecy in Britain’s courts, Mr Justice Tugendhat revoked a privacy injunction obtained by John Terry, the England football captain, ruling that there were no grounds for a gagging order preventing the disclosure of an extramarital affair with a former team-mate’s girlfriend. The ‘super-injunction’ had been granted last week after Terry’s legal team used Human Rights Act legislation to argue the public had no right to know about his private life. The injunction has been criticised as the latest example of courts bringing in a backdoor privacy law at the expense of freedom of expression in the media. This weekend Lord Woolf, the former lord chief justice, said he hoped Terry’s case would discourage celebrities from making spurious attempts to gag the press. More in the Guardian HERE; Sunday Times HERE and HERE; and Telegraph HERE.

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