News Summary: 5th March 2010

March 5th, 2010 - 
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Advertising

Trinity Mirror – owner of the Daily Mirror and over 120 regional titles – has followed ITV’s announcement (on which more HERE) with further signs that the advertising recession may be over. Reporting better than expected full-year results, Trinity Mirror said that it expected advertising revenue to continue improving after a dire 2009, adding that it was considering reinstating a dividend. Trinity Mirror chief executive, Sly Bailey reports resilience:

‘We are emerging from the downturn leaner and fitter… Ongoing tight management of the cost base enabled costs to fall by £67.9m and was crucial in supporting our profits… During 2010, we will maintain a focus on costs whilst reaping the benefits of an improvement in the rate of decline in advertising revenues. Whilst the board remains cautious about the economic outlook, it anticipates a satisfactory performance for 2010.’ More in The Guardian HERE; Times HERE and HERE; and Telegraph HERE.

Broadcasting

ITV announced yesterday it had secured the UK broadcasting rights to this year’s IPL Twenty20 cricket competition, which gets underway in a week. ITV will show 59 live games over the 45-day tournament on its ITV4 channel, as well as its website, ITV.com. Zai Bennett, director of digital channels and acquisitions at ITV, said it was an ‘exciting acquisition for one of the UK’s fastest-growing digital channels’. Notably, neither Sky, which at present broadcasts all the live cricket shown in Britain, nor the BBC, which is under constant pressure to show cricket, has showed bidding interest. ITV’S deal will prove an interesting test to the hypothesis that cricket will garner an audience only on free-to-air. More in The Independent HERE and HERE.

BBC Radio 1 is to introduce a new mid-week rundown of the 40 pop bestsellers of the week — so far — in the “Official Chart Update”, every Wednesday between 3.30pm and 4pm. Gennaro Castaldo, of HMV, has said the move will give a boost to help up-and-coming artists, who tend to sell better towards at the start of the week:

‘With social media the charts are more relevant than ever before because you have an instant gauge of what people are doing… The charts remain hugely important to the industry because you know where you stand. And we all love the competition and the race.’ More in The Times HERE.

In other BBC news, BBC Worldwide has agreed a deal to buy out the remaining 40 per cent of DVD business 2entertain it did not previously own in a deal worth £17m. The sale, negotiated with the administrators of Woolworths, BBC Worldwide’s partner in the venture, started at the end of 2008. The BBC said the move secured the future of 2entertain, which publishes DVD titles toinclude Gavin & Stacey, Doctor Who and Fawlty Towers. John Smith, CEO of BBC Worldwide, has said:

“I am pleased that we have finally concluded these negotiations, and have secured the future of 2entertain… Licence fee payers will continue to benefit from 2|entertain’s contribution to BBC Worldwide, which helped us return a total of £153m to the BBC in the last financial year,” More in The Independent HERE.

There’s also more on BBC 6 Music, with The Guardian pondering the delivery of ‘new music’ HERE and The Independent arguing that ‘with more people doing their listening online, 6 Music has lost what little raison d’être it had in the first place’ HERE.

Jeremy’s letter to The Guardian

Jeremy has written to The Guardian in response to Jonathan Freedland’s Tuesday Guardian article entitled ‘The BBC is caving in to a Tory media policy dictated by Rupert Murdoch’, which you can read HERE. Jeremy responded as follows:

‘Jonathan Freedland suggests Conservative media policy can be summed up in two words: Rupert Murdoch. I would suggest his article can be summed up in two other words: Ben Bradshaw.

His article is so far off the mark, and bears so little relation to the facts, that he appears to have swallowed Labour spin hook, line and sinker. Every single accusation he makes has been made by Bradshaw, the culture secretary, at the dispatch box – but instead of scrutinising their accuracy, Freedland has simply reproduced them almost verbatim.

Let’s take the licence fee. He says: “The Murdochs constantly demand a cut in the licence fee. Last year Cameron nodded dutifully, and called for an immediate freeze in the licence fee.” We did propose a freeze last year – why should the BBC get a rise when there was no inflation?

But it is Labour, not the Tories, who have questioned the licence fee, with Bradshaw putting the principle of the licence fee up for debate only this week. By contrast, David Cameron has written, in the Sun of all places, that he supports the BBC and the principle of the fee. And we have explicitly ruled out privatising Radio 1.

In fact we listen to all sorts of people about media policies – including your own Guardian Media Group, who have expressed concerns about the size and scope of the BBC’s website.

Freedland also raises “the Murdochs’ hatred of Ofcom”, quoting David Cameron as wanting to cut the regulator “by a huge amount”. We do want to slim down quangos, and do believe media policy should be decided by elected ministers not unelected officials. However, we have explicitly made it clear that Ofcom would continue to regulate on competition issues – including pay TV – at arm’s length.

Freedland says: “Sky wants to keep exclusive access to the Ashes, rather than seeing them return, free to air, to the BBC or C4, and the Conservatives agree.” Actually, all we have said is that any decision should take account of the financial impact on grassroots sport. It is not Murdoch’s lobbying that has held us to this conclusion – but the genuine concerns of county cricket boards all over the country that any change would mean less money available to get more young people playing sport.

The general election is coming and political smears will obviously be par for the course. But the debate needs to be based on the facts. The Labour government bases its approach around regulation and subsidy; a modern Conservative approach wants to preserve what is best about British broadcasting while updating regulations to take account of the new media world we live in.

That means support for the BBC as a great national institution – but also a new network of city-based local television stations, superfast broadband for the whole country, and a thriving independent sector that drives on choice and quality for everyone. In this area, Jonathan and I would perhaps agree on one thing: there is a real choice.’ As published in today’s Guardian HERE.

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News Summary: 4th March 2010

March 4th, 2010 - 
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Broadcasting

In the name of equality, the Guardian has left BBC 6 Music for the day, in order to ask ‘Where’s the Save Asian Network campaign?’ And then to respond that the majority of the Asian Network audience comes from the Midlands (around 70%) listens on the AM frequency, not on digital radio; you’re unlikely to find them in media-friendly places such as Twitter – ‘The Asian Network’s inability to generate its own noise seems to stem from the fact that it doesn’t appeal to middle-class male tweeters with a love of Suede B-sides.’ More in The Guardian  HERE, with the idea that breaking up the BBC Asian Network will better serve diverse communities dismissed as absurd HERE.

The Times reports the fact that 3,000 complaints have been made to the BBC regarding 6 Music, and a senior BBC executive’s report that Mark Thompson:

‘… told us he is not concerned about the outcry, because it sends a message to politicians that even if you want to close a small, niche station there’s such a large outcry; imagine what would happen if you tried to close BBC One or Two.’ More in The Times HERE, whilst The Independent focuses on new controversy around the BBC giving free sporting event tickets to celebrities HERE.

ITV chairman, Archie Norman has said ITV gains nothing from the proposed BBC cutbacks:

‘I don’t see any benefit… The savings the BBC will make on cutting back on peripheral activities will be re-invested in programming. I can’t see how that will be of any benefit to ITV.’

Speaking of ITV’s own strategic review, which will be run by chief executive Adam Crozier for his arrival on 26 April with support from consultants LEK, he said what was needed was a ‘cold-eyed, realistic’ look at ITV’s position in the marketplace and that ‘today is very much day zero’. Norman, who has in the past said that a move to pay-TV services was not on the cards, seems to be viewing the idea more favourably of late, although maintaining that ITV currently has ‘no suitable product for a pay platform’. More in The Guardian HERE and more on ITV’s profits announcements in The Independent HERE.

City of Culture

Derry was last week one of four cities shortlisted for the title of UK City of Culture, 2013, good news which at the time seemed straight-forward enough; until Sinn Féin demanded that ‘UK’ be stripped from the title if the city wins. Maeve McLaughlin, the party’s leader on Derry city council, has said:

‘I have yet to be convinced this bid, as it currently stands, reflects the views of Irish nationalists and republicans… While we are a city of culture there has to be a recognition that we’re not part of the UK. We are not opposing the bid, but… There is a huge onus on the team that’s been put together to lead this bid to put in writing how they will address the issue of the tens of thousands of nationalists and republicans in this city and region who do not recognise themselves as part of the UK.’

Speaking yesterday at a reception to launch Derry’s bid in the House of Lords, the SDLP MP Mark Durkan said Sinn Féin protests over the title were putting the city’s application in peril:

‘This bid is an opportunity for Derry to promote itself as a city and to promote the wider region. It is about our civic ambition. It is about our cultural ambition. It is nothing to do with political aspiration – in which the people of this city have very clear views and differences about wanting to be part of a united Ireland or United Kingdom… Are we going to say that any other funding or opportunity that is set up on a UK basis we count ourselves out of? We should not be disabling ourselves from making the most of any opportunity to which we are as entitled as anyone else… And we can do that without compromising any of our political beliefs, any of our interests and identities that we hold very dearly at a political level.” More in The Guardian HERE.

Tech

Ed Richards, chief executive of Ofcom, has said that several media companies had raised concerns about the issue of net neutrality in the last few months and that Ofcom is scrutinising traffic management techniques, to publish its initial findings in the spring. Whilst arguing that traffic management policies must be clearly explained and transparent, Richards has indicated that the highly interventionist approach seen in the United States might not be appropriate for the UK and Europe, and that it was:

‘… even harder to justify blanket net neutrality rules when we consider the risks they could pose to potential collaborative and desirable investment in networks… In the US, limited competition, both at the network and the ISP level, means that the potential for consumer detriment through traffic management is greater… In Europe, as recent research for the FCC indicates, the mixed model — investment in infrastructure complemented by unbundling of the local loop — has delivered a more competitive market structure from the exchange back into the network.’ More in The Telegraph HERE.

Publishing

Mills and Boon’s novels were launched in India exactly two years ago and have doubled their sales in the past year. The publisher, Harlequin Mills & Boon, is far from the only beneficiary of a boom in book sales that is sweeping India; Dan Brown’s sequel to The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol, has already sold 100,000 in hardback alone; Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker winner The White Tiger has sold more than 200,000 copies since its publication in 2008.

Driving the demand is the country’s continuing economic boom – 6.7% growth in 2009 despite the global crisis – and the tastes of the new Indian middle class. Manish Singh, Mills & Boon’s country manager for India has said:

‘It is a forward looking generation… The low hanging fruit for us is the single working woman who has money in her hands, the liberty to read, no responsibilities yet, no husband, children and so on.’

In the next decade, publishers forecast that India will become the biggest English language book-buying market in the world. New distribution networks and an increasing presence of chains of major bookstores are also fuelling the expansion. More in The Guardian HERE.

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ITV announce pre-tax profit of £25m for 2009

March 3rd, 2010 - 
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  • Across 2009, ITV delivered £50m of efficiency savings and reduced schedule costs by £119m.
  • 2010 budgets have been set with no increase in schedule costs.
  • Any near term increase in spend will depend on greater certainty regarding outlook for market growth and potential return via on-screen performance.
  • ITV continues to invest to support the launch of ITV1 HD, ITV1+1 and Canvas.
  • Over the seven weeks to 21 February, share of commercial impacts for ITV channels stood at 40.6% (2009: 40.7%) and for ITV1 at 28.5% (2009: 29.4%).
  • Following Archie Norman’s appointment as Chairman, the Board has been streamlined with the departure of four non-executive directors.
  • Adam Crozier will join ITV plc as Chief Executive on Monday, 26 April 2010.

John Cresswell, Interim Chief Executive Officer, ITV plc, has said:

“Faced with the worst television advertising downturn on record… We won back share of the TV advertising market, grew our audiences in peak time and online, and increased our international production presence. We took out costs of £169m, substantially reduced our headcount and lowered net debt by over £100m.

“Whilst ITV advertising revenues are up 7% in the first quarter, this is against the unprecedented declines of the previous year and, over the medium term, we remain cautious.  We recognise also that ITV still faces formidable challenges.  However, with the concerted action we have taken, ITV can address these from a stronger position, both financially and operationally.”

Archie Norman, Chairman, ITV plc, said:

“Under Adam Crozier’s leadership, ITV will set out on the journey to become a very different business over the next five years. ITV’s challenge is to reduce its dependence on a free-to-air model threatened by digital media and besieged by legacy regulation. We have great talent and a strong brand and our future is in our own hands.”

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News Summary: 3rd March 2010

March 3rd, 2010 - 
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Broadcasting

Opposition to the closure of BBC 6 Music continues in The Guardian HERE, HERE and here HERE, with more general analysis HERE, HERE and HERE; in The Independent HERE and HERE, with unions’ continuing vows to resist cuts HERE. The Times ponders the likelihood of a licence fee cut or freeze HERE and HERE, with further analysis HERE; in The Telegraph HERE and FT HERE.

Our congratulations to ITV, who have reported a pre-tax profit of £25m for 2009 (in contrast with its posting a loss of £2.7bn in 2008 HERE). ITV had a strong close to the year, outperforming the total TV ad market, which fell 11%. It says it expects TV ad revenues to be up 18% year on year in March and up 15% to 20% in April. TV ad revenues are expected to increase 7% overall in the first quarter. Chairman, Archie Norman, announced that Adam Crozier will start on 26th April, adding that under his leadership:

‘ITV will set out on the journey to become a very different business over the next five years… ITV’s challenge is to reduce its dependence on a free-to-air model threatened by digital media and besieged by legacy regulation.’ More in The Guardian HERE; Independent HERE; Times HERE; Telegraph HERE and FT HERE.

Art

Infighting and sabotage at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, which has just received an emergency Arts Council Sustain fund bailout of £1.2m, Mark Sladen, its director of exhibitions, has announced he would consider a new role in the organisation only if its director, Ekow Eshun, resigned. He said ‘I would not be able to carry out the duties of the position unless Ekow resigned’ such that, having been told that Ekow has no intention of doing so, ‘I will be serving out my remaining notice, and leaving in late April.’

A vote of no confidence in Eshun has also been taken by staff members. But at a later union meeting, it was decided the vote should not be counted or its results disseminated. A member of staff said:

‘The results of the vote were suppressed, and whatever the official line on this, this is manipulation. Ekow Eshun made it clear that to reveal the results of the vote would be an act of sabotage, that the ICA would suffer from such information being out there.’ More in The Guardian 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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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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News Summary: 1st February 2010

February 1st, 2010 - 
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Julian Bellamy, head of Channel 4, has just confirmed that the broadcaster is in talks with Jonathan Ross, whose BBC contract ends in July. More in the Guardian HERE and Independent HERE. The announcement comes at a time when Channel 4 is looking to ‘fill the void after reality TV’, on which more HERE.

Today is Follow a Museum Day – over a million people already follow museums on Twitter, and today each of these is being asked to tell a friend about their museum, inviting them to follow too. The full directory of tweeting UK museums can be found HERE.

Amidst government and industry fears of an anti-switchover rebellion by fm radio listeners, Digital Radio UK, the organisation set up to drive switchover has held exploratory talks with leading retailers and manufacturers about a radio scrappage scheme wherein stores will accept analogue sets in part-exchange for new digital models.

One complementary idea being touted by senior industry executives involves sending a shipment of outmoded analogue radios to an African country, where they are one of the main sources of communication and the BBC World Service is popular. The event would generate huge publicity and could form the centrepiece of a PR campaign in the run up to switchover, when the public will be persuaded to dump their old sets. More HERE.

ITV is reported to have faced shareholder anger last night over the £15m pay package of the next chief executive, formerly of Royal Mail, Adam Crozier (as covered in our weekend summary HERE). One significant shareholder described Crozier as ‘totally unproven’, adding ‘The pity of it is one tends to associate the Royal Mail with bad management’. More in The Times HERE, whilst the Guardian discusses why ‘ad men like Crozier’ are coming to dominate television HERE.

TIGA, the trade association representing the UK games industry, has called on the Government to invest resources in all creative industries with potential, rather than just traditional business sectors. Jason Kingsley, Chairman of TIGA and CEO and Creative Director at Rebellion Studios, said:

‘Just as the Government backs sectors like the film industry and the oil industry with tax breaks, so it should invest in the games industry through Games Tax Relief. The UK Government must support the creative industries in general, and the video games sector in particular, as part of a process of rebalancing the UK economy away from an excessive dependency on financial services.’ More HERE.

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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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News Summary: 27th January 2010

January 27th, 2010 - 
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‘Oblivion is no place for the arts’ Prince Charles told the last ever South Bank Show Awards, via a video message criticising ITV’s decision to cancel the South Bank Show. He said the show was ‘one of the most important beacons of the arts in this country’ and that ‘Civilisation needs all the help it can get, more so today than ever before. But now it loses one of its greatest champions.’

Lord Bragg, presenter of the show since its launch in 1978, said ‘I’m baffled as to how and why it was taken off the air. I don’t think it was a financial consideration.’ He added that arts on mainstream television has dropped by around 60%. Embarrassingly for ITV, the ceremony will be broadcast on January 31, complete with criticism from the Prince of Wales and others. Lord Bragg said: ‘I am the editor… it won’t be censored.’ More in the Guardian HERE; Independent HERE; and Telegraph HERE.

A Chinese court has cleared Baidu, China’s most popular search engine, of music piracy. Another site called Sohu was also cleared. The music sector trade body, IFPA, responded: ‘The judgments in the Baidu and Sohu/Sogou cases are extremely disappointing… [and] do not reflect the reality that both operators have built their music search businesses on the basis of facilitating mass copyright infringement, to the detriment of artists, producers and all those involved in China’s legitimate music market.’ Background on the case, which was launched by Universal Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment Hong Kong and Warner Music Hong Kong in early 2008, can be found HERE. More on today’s story HERE.

There’s an interesting article in the GuardianTech HERE on digital copyright, and what that should aim to achieve; to promote participation with culture without displacing any revenue for the rights holder.

Whilst the Government seems to be pushing ahead with the 2015 completion rate for digital radio switchover in the Digital Economy Bill, Ford Ennals, the CEO of Digital Radio UK –  the body charged with overseeing the switchover – has now predicted that the completion of the process is in fact – at the earliest – 6 to 10 years away. He adds that he wants to ‘be responsible and transparent with consumers’. More HERE. Also talking about Digital Britain yesterday was Kip Meek (formerly of Ofcom; made independent broker to the DB interim report last year). He told the Westminster Media eForum that digital decisions had been left too late, and that the issue of spectrum – both trading existing spectrum and auctioning off the spectrum on the airwaves released by the digital switchover process – had become a ‘policy-making orphan’. More HERE.

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News Summary: January 22nd 2010

January 22nd, 2010 - 
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Hilary Clinton made a speech yesterday calling on Beijing to investigate Google’s claim’s of Chinese cyber-hacking, and also announcing that tackling internet censorship will be a new priority for US foreign policy. More in the Independent HERE; Times HERE and Telegraph HERE. China responded today warning the US against interference and denouncing Clinton’s criticisms as “information imperialism”.. A foreign ministry spokesman said:

‘The US has criticised China’s policies to administer the internet and insinuated that China restricts internet freedom… This runs contrary to the facts and is harmful to China-US relations… We urge the United States to respect the facts and cease using so-called internet freedom to make groundless accusations against China.’ More in the Guardian HERE and Times HERE.

The Court of Appeal has upheld a judgment from the Competition Appeal Tribunal in 2008, which insisted that BSkyB cut its stake in ITV from 17.9 per cent to less than 7.5 per cent on competition grounds. Sky has 28 days to lodge an appeal with the Supreme Court, its final available legal recourse, and has said it will ‘review the judgment and order carefully and consider next steps in due course’. More in the Independent HERE; Times HERE; and Telegraph HERE and HERE.

BT is launching its next-generation super-fast broadband service next week, and kick-starting a price-war; already claiming to have undercut Virgin Media’s prices. BT is spending £1.5bn putting a new fibre network within the reach of 10m homes by the time of the Olympics in 2012. It will have 500,000 homes connected by the end of next month and 4m by the end of this year. Virgin Media, meanwhile, has already upgraded its existing cable network, which passes 12.5m addresses, and launched its own ultra-high speed offering.

Virgin have hit back at BT’s pricing, accusing the company of misleading consumers because Virgin Media’s service is actually faster. BT’s service runs at 40Mb per second while Virgin Media’s is 50Mb per second. This said, BT’s service does offer upload speeds of 10Mb a second – meaning customers will be able to send large files to other people quickly. In stark contrast, Virgin Media’s upload speed – even on its 50Mb service – is only 1.5Mb. More in the Guardian HERE and Telegraph HERE.

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